The clinical and histopathological aspect of the liver, lung, and kidney in Malaria

Abstract

Malaria is an infectious disease with worldwide distribution. The symptom ranges from asymptomatic to severe malaria that could cause mortality. Sequestration and rosetting in the capillaries of several organs in combination with the host inflammatory and immune response could cause multi-organ dysfunction including brain, liver, lung, kidney, etc. This review is to summarize the clinical and histopathological aspect of the disease, especially in lung, liver, and kidney. The clinical importance of severe malaria in the lung are acute lung injury or acute respiratory distress syndrome, jaundice in the liver, and acute kidney injury in the kidney. The histopathological change, in general, is the sequestration of infected erythrocytes in the capillaries of the organ. In the lung, the main changes are seen especially the septa. While in the liver, there are various changes including Kupffer cells hyperplasia, the proliferation of portal tract and bile duct, etc. In the kidney, the changes are in the glomerulus, tubules, and interstitial.