In this section
@article{White:2013:10.1186/1475-2875-12-278,
author = {White, MT and Griffin, JT and Ghani, AC},
doi = {10.1186/1475-2875-12-278},
journal = {Malaria Journal},
title = {The design and statistical power of treatment re-infection studies of the association between pre-erythrocytic immunity and infection with Plasmodium falciparum},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1475-2875-12-278},
volume = {12},
year = {2013}
}
TY - JOUR
AB - Background: Understanding the role of pre-erythrocytic immune responses to Plasmodium falciparum parasites iscrucial for understanding the epidemiology of malaria. However, published studies have reported inconsistentresults on the association between markers of pre-erythrocytic immunity and protection from malaria.Methods: The design and statistical methods of studies of pre-erythrocytic immunity were reviewed, and factorsaffecting the likelihood of detecting statistically significant associations were assessed. Treatment re-infectionstudies were simulated to estimate the effects of study size, transmission intensity, and sampling frequency on thestatistical power to detect an association between markers of pre-erythrocytic immunity and protection frominfection.Results: Nine of nineteen studies reviewed reported statistically significant associations between markers ofpre-erythrocytic immunity and protection from infection. Studies with large numbers of participants inhigh-transmission settings, followed longitudinally with active detection of infection and with immune responsesanalysed as continuous variables, were most likely to detect statistically significant associations. Simulation oftreatment re-infection studies highlights that many studies are underpowered to detect statistically significantassociations, providing an explanation for the finding that only some studies report significant associations betweenpre-erythrocytic immune responses and protection from infection.Conclusions: The findings of the review and model simulations are consistent with the hypothesis thatpre-erythrocytic immune responses prevent P. falciparum infections, but that many studies are underpowered toconsistently detect this effect.
AU - White,MT
AU - Griffin,JT
AU - Ghani,AC
DO - 10.1186/1475-2875-12-278
PY - 2013///
SN - 1475-2875
TI - The design and statistical power of treatment re-infection studies of the association between pre-erythrocytic immunity and infection with Plasmodium falciparum
T2 - Malaria Journal
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1475-2875-12-278
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/30722
VL - 12
ER -