Does the Use of Dihydroartemisinin-Piperaquine in Treating Patients with Uncomplicated falciparum Malaria Reduce the Risk for Recurrent New falciparum Infection More Than Artemether-Lumefantrine?

Table 6

Findings on total treatment failure (TTF), PCR-corrected by day 42.

Study name	Study groups with number of failures	Risk (𝑅)	Risk ratio (RR) (95% CI)	𝑃 value	Interpretation of RR values
Bassat et al., 2009 [32]	DP (𝑁/𝑁): 143/1038; AL (𝑛/𝑁): 68/510	0.138; 0.133	1.033; (0.790–1.352)	0.811	There was a marginal increase in treatment failure of 3.3% associated with DP treatment but it is not statistically significant.
Kamya et al., 2007 [30]	DP (𝑛/𝑁): 13/211; AL (𝑛/𝑁): 28/210	0.062; 0.133	0.452; (0.245–0.867)	0.016	This result shows that DP treatment was associated with a point estimate reduction of 54.8% in treatment failure; with lowest and highest of the estimates being 13.3% and 75.5%, respectively, and it is statistically significant.
Sawa et al., 2013 [34]	DP (𝑛/𝑁): 0/134; AL (𝑛/𝑁): 4/145	0.000; 0.028	0.120; (0.007–2.211)	0.154	DP treatment had contributed to 88% reduction in treatment failure but it is not statistically significant. The largest plausible reduction was 99.3%.
Yeka et al., 2008 [35]	DP (𝑛/𝑁): 5/215; AL (𝑛/𝑁): 13/199	0.023; 0.065	0.356; (0.129–0.981)	0.045	This result is statistically significant. There was a reduction in failure in favour of DP treatment of 64.4%. The highest possible reduction was 87% and the lowest was 2% in favour of DP treatment of falciparum malaria.