Research Article Association between Inflammatory Cytokine Levels and Thrombocytopenia during Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax Infections in South-Western Coastal Region of India Kishore Punnath, 1,2 Kiran K. Dayanand, 1,2 Valleesha N. Chandrashekar, 1,2 Rajeshwara N. Achur , 2 Srinivas B. Kakkilaya, 3 Susanta K. Ghosh , 4 Suchetha N. Kumari, 1 and D. Channe Gowda 5 1 Department of Biochemistry, K. S. Hegde Medical Academy, NITTE (Deemed to be University), Mangaluru, India 2 Department of Biochemistry, Kuvempu University, Shankaraghatta, Shivamogga District, Karnataka, India 3 Light House Polyclinic, Light House Hill Road, Mangaluru, Karnataka, India 4 Department of Molecular Parasitology, ICMR-National Institute of Malaria Research, Poojanahalli, Bangalore, India 5 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Te Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, 500 University Drive, Hershey, PA, USA Correspondence should be addressed to Rajeshwara N. Achur; rajachur@gmail.com Received 19 November 2018; Revised 11 February 2019; Accepted 26 March 2019; Published 11 April 2019 Academic Editor: Donatella Taramelli Copyright © 2019 Kishore Punnath et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. Trombocytopenia is a most commonly observed complication during malaria infections. Infammatory cytokines such as IL-1, IL-6, and IL-10 have been documented in malaria induced thrombocytopaenia. Tis study was aimed to understand the possible relationship between infammatory cytokines across varying degrees of thrombocytopenia during P. vivax, P. falciparum, and mixed infections. Methods. A hospital-based cross sectional study was conducted at District Wenlock Hospital in Mangaluru, a city situated along the south-western coastal region of Arabian Sea in India. In this study, blood samples from 627 malaria patients were analyzed for infected parasite species, clinical conditions, platelet levels, and key cytokines that are produced in response to infection; samples from 176 uninfected healthy individuals were used as controls. Results. Te results of our study showed a high prevalence of malarial thrombocytopenia (platelets <150 ×10 3 /l) in this endemic settings. About 62.7% patients had mild-to-moderate levels of thrombocytopenia and 16% patients had severe thrombocytopenia (platelets <50 × 10 3 /l). Upon comparison of cytokines across varying degrees of thrombocytopenia, irrespective of infecting species, the levels of TNF- and IL-10 were signifcantly higher during thrombocytopenia, whereas IL-6 levels were considerably lower in severe thrombocytopenia patients sufering from P. vivax or P. falciparum infections. Te severe clinical complications observed in patients with malarial thrombocytopenia included severe anemia (17.5%), acute renal failure (12.7%), jaundice (27.0%), metabolic acidosis (36.5%), spontaneous bleeding (3.2%), hypoglycemia (25.4%), hyperparasitemia (4.8%), acute respiratory distress syndrome (1.6%), pulmonary edema (19.0%), and cerebral malaria (1.6%) in various combinations. Conclusion. Overall, the results of our study suggest that infammatory cytokines infuence the transformation of mild forms of thrombocytopenia into severe forms during malarial infections. Further studies are needed to understand the association of infammatory cytokine responses with severe malaria complications and thrombocytopenia. 1. Introduction Protozoan parasites of the genus Plasmodium cause malaria, a devastating disease prevalent across tropical regions around the world. In the year 2016, more than 216 million clinical cases and 445,000 deaths were reported across 91 countries worldwide [1]. Nearly half of the world’s population is at risk of malaria infections. In Southeast Asia alone, >1.4 million clinical cases and >550 deaths occur every year due to malaria. In India, during 2016, ∼1.09 million clinical cases and 331 deaths were reported [1]. Hindawi Malaria Research and Treatment Volume 2019, Article ID 4296523, 10 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/4296523