A study of erythroid progenitor cells in the bone marrow of Gambian children with falciparum malaria.

There was a wide variation in the number of BFUe and CFUe in the bone marrow of Gambian children with falciparum malaria and moderate or severe anaemia. However, such children were often not deficient in these erythroid progenitors. The number of BFUe in patients who had parasitaemias greater than 1% was significantly lower than that in patients with parasitaemias less than 1%. There was also a statistically significant negative correlation between the number of BFUe and CFUe in the entire group of children studied. When autologous serum (30%, v/v) was used in the culture system, CFUe growth was observed even in the absence of added erythropoietin (EPO), indicating the presence of high levels of EPO or an EPO-like substance in the anaemic sera. It is concluded that children with Plasmodium falciparum malaria show no major abnormality in their erythroid progenitor cells and that the perturbation of erythropoiesis in such children occurs mainly in the morphologically recognizable erythroid precursor cells. The wide variation observed in the number of CFUe and BFUe in different patients, and the correlations between the number of BFUe and parasitaemia and the number of BFUe and CFUe are all probably largely related to the changing clinicopathological situation in patients with malaria and anaemia.