Full blood count and haemozoin-containing leukocytes in children with malaria: diagnostic value and association with disease severity

Table 1 FBC results of children with and without malaria

FBC-Parameter	no malaria (n = 216)		malaria (n = 152)		p-value
	mean	10 ^th /90 ^th percentile	mean	10 ^th /90 ^th percentile
total WBC	9.5	9.2/10.0	8.7	4.3/13.9	p < 0.05
neutrophils	2.7	1.1/4.7	3.8	1.7/6.6	p < 0.001
lymphocytes	5.5	3.3/8.0	3.0	1/6.9	p < 0.001
monocytes	0.8	0.2/1.4	1.3	0.3/2.6	p < 0.05
eosinophils	0.4	0.1/0.9	0.4	0/0.7	p = 0.63
platelets	428	286/594	137	54/243	p < 0.001
haemoglobin	9.8	8.5/11.0	7.8	5.2/10.5	p < 0.001

Values in thousand/μL, except haemoglobin in g/dL. Children with malaria were significantly older (mean: 3.7 years) that the ones without malaria (mean: 0.6 years) and the reference values for leukocytes and Hb are inherently different between the two age-groups (see discussion).