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Table 2 Comparison of the clinicopathological diagnosis with the histological count classification

From: A histological method for quantifying Plasmodium falciparum in the brain in fatal paediatric cerebral malaria

Comparison

Agreement****

Kappa*

P-value

CM** vs. NF***

97.55%

0.9532

<0.0001

CM vs. DM***

97.96%

0.9612

<0.0001

NF vs. DM

96.33%

0.9302

<0.0001

  1. *Weighted kappa based on [1, 0.8 1, 0 0 1] matrix.
  2. **The CM classification is based on the clinical data (whether or not the patient met the clinical case definition of cerebral malaria) plus the pathological data in three categories (1 = sequestration only, 2 = sequestration plus extravascular pathology, 3 = non-malaria cause of death). For the purposes of this analysis, all malaria pathology negative patients (including those that met the clinical case definition but died of another cause) are categorized as 3. Two early cases who died very quickly without proper clinical assessment are classified as 1 for this analysis based solely on pathology.
  3. *** For both NF and DM, the counts produced for the cases were used to classify the patients as 1 (if % of vessels parasitized >23.3 and total pigment globules <55.5), 2 (vessels parasitized >23.3 and total pigment >55.5) or 3 (vessels parasitized <23.3) corresponding to the outcome of the classification and regression tree analysis previously published [15].
  4. **** Among the total 50 observations done by the two readers, proportion of those in which both observers equally classified the case.
  5. Comparison of the clinicopathological diagnosis (clinical data plus pathological data final anatomic diagnosis) compared with the histological count classification for both NF and DM.