Prevalence of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency in India: An updated meta-analysis

Abstract

Background: Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) is a house keeping enzyme which catalyzes the first step in the hexose monophosphate pathway of glucose metabolism. G6PD deficiency is the commonest hemolytic X-linked genetic disease, which affects approximately 400 million people worldwide. The prevalence rate of G6PD deficiency varies worldwide with a higher prevalence in malarial endemic population. In India several studies were published and reported with varying incidences of this disease in different populations.
Objective: The aim of the present study was to assess the overall frequency of G6PD deficiency in the Indian population using meta-analysis.
Methods: PubMed, Science Direct, Google Scholar and Springer Link databases were searched for studies that investigated G6PD deficiency in Indian population. If any author studied different sub-populations we treated the study as an independent study.
Results: A total of 72 studies with a total sample size of 38,565 and 2,623 G6PD deficient subjects were included in the present meta-analysis. Meta-analysis was performed in both fixed and random effect models. Meta-analysis with random model showed an overall prevalence proportion as 0.085 (95% CI = 0.070–0.103; p= 0.000; tau =0.826; I2 = 0.486; Cochran Q =0.999).
Conclusion: In conclusion the present meta-analysis confirms the overall magnitude of the frequency of G6PD deficiency (8.5%) in the Indian population.