In recent years, the use of a three-day course of an antimalarial treatment called ACT (artemisinin-based combination therapy) in over 40 countries that face endemic malaria has shown great success in curing this deadly disease. In a policy paper in this week's PLoS Medicine, a team of researchers led by Steffen Borrmann (Kenya Medical Research Institute/Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Kilifi, Kenya) argues that the success of ACT "demands a new approach to the ways in which we assess new antimalarial drugs during clinical development and judge their potential utility for public health deployment." The authors discuss the design and interpretation of clinical trials for new antimalarial drugs in the era of ACT. The policy paper is further discussed in an expert commentary by Colin Sutherland (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK).
Citation: Borrmann S, Peto T, Snow RW, Gutteridge W, WhiteNJ (2008)Revisiting the design of phase III clinical trials of antimalarial drugs for uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria. PLoS Med 5(11): e227. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050227
IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER: http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050227
PRESS-ONLY PREVIEW OF THE ARTICLE: http://www.plos.org/press/plme-05-11-borrmann.pdf
CONTACT:
Steffan Borrmann
KEMRI/Wellcome Trust Research Programme
Molecular Parasitology
P.O. Box 230
Kilifi, Coast 80108
Kenya
+254-723-487242
sborrmann@kilifi.kemri-wellcome.org
Related PLoS Medicine Perspective
Citation: Sutherland CJ (2008) Comparing highly efficacious antimalarial drugs. PLoS Med 5(11): e228. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050228
IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER: http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050228
PRESS-ONLY PREVIEW OF THE ARTICLE: http://www.plos.org/press/plme-05-11-sutherland.pdf
CONTACT:
Colin Sutherland
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Infectious & Tropical Diseases
Keppel Street
London, WC1E 7HT
United Kingdom
+44 (0)20 7927 2338
colin.sutherland@lshtm.ac.uk
PLOS Medicine