AbstracIntroduction: Thrombocytopenia is an early and consistent feature of malaria, but its pathogenesis remains incompletely understood. In falciparum malaria there is increased platelet consumption as evidenced by shortened survival of radio labelled platelets. Aims and Objectives: To Study Role of Thrombocytopenia in the Prognosis of the Patients with Malaria. Methodology: After approval from institutional ethical committee, the present study was cross sectional study was carried out at tertiary care hospital in the urban setting. The study period was 1 year from March 2015 to March 2016. Study population consisted of patient diagnosed as case of malaria and admitted at tertiary care hospital during period of one year, Z-test (Standard Error of Difference Between two Proportion) used for statistical analysis. Result: The majority of the patients were form the age group 30-40 i.e. 26.36% followed by 40-50-20.00%; 50-60-17.27%; 20-30-15.45%; 10-20-10.90%; >60-10.00%. The majority of the patients were Male i.e. 70.90% followed by Females38.18%. All 51 cases of severe malaria had thrombocytopenia and 35 cases of uncomplicated malaria had thrombocytopenia. Out of 26 cases of mild thrombocytopenia 12 (14.16%) cases belongs to severe malaria while uncomplicated malaria consisted of 14 (53.84%) cases. Among 29 cases of moderate thrombocytopenia 14 (48.28%) cases had severe malaria while 15 (51.72%) cases had uncomplicated malaria. Out of 31 cases of severe thrombocytopenia 25 (80.64%) cases had severe malaria while only 6 (19.35%) of uncomplicated malaria had severe thrombocytopenia. Significantly more numbers of cases of severe malaria have severe thrombocytopenia as compared to uncomplicated malaria. (z= 4.96; p<0.001). Conclusion: In our study we have found that more numbers of cases of severe malaria have severe thrombocytopenia as compared to uncomplicated malaria hence it can be concluded that the thrombocytopenia correlates with the severity of the Malaria.

Keywords: Thrombocytopenia, Severe malaria, Prognostic factors of Malaria.