Cure of chronic vivax malaria with pentaquine.

The treatment of malaria has been characterized by failure to obtain permanent cure in many cases, in spite of the fact that either quinine or quinacrine hydrochloride ("atabrine di-hydrochloride") will afford prompt relief of the acute attack. Post-treatment recurrences or relapses occur in a high percentage of patients with vivax and quartan malaria particularly.

During World War II an intensive research program was inaugurated to discover a curative nontoxic drug which could be administered in a practical manner. This program was conducted under the auspices of the National Research Council with many participants. Although many new compounds were discovered, the present report is concerned only with pentaquine (8-[5-isopropylaminoamylamino]-6-methoxyquinoline).1 Highly successful results were obtained following its use in the treatment of 185 vivax-infected ex-servicemen after all other known methods of therapy had failed.

Full text article: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/303291