Glucose 6 phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency

Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G-6-PD) deficiency is a genetic and sex-linked enzyme defect. It results in the crash of red blood cells when the person is exposed to sure drugs or the stress of infection. G-6-PD deficiency affects all races. In the United States, many more black than white people have the disorder. Approximately 10 - 14% of the black male population is affected. The disorder may infrequently affect a black woman to a mild degree (depending on their genetic inheritance). An estimated 400 million people worldwide have glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency.

The maximum prevalence is among persons of African, Asian, or Mediterranean descent. Brutality varies radically between racial groups because of dissimilar variants of the enzyme. The enzymatic variants in the African population have more activity and produce a milder form of the disease. The most common medical problem connected with glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency is hemolytic anemia, which occurs when red blood cells are destroyed faster than the body can put back them.

In people with glucose-6-dehydrogenase deficiency, hemolytic anemia is most frequently caused by bacterial or viral infections or by certain drugs (such as some antibiotics and medications used to treat malaria). Hemolytic anemia can also arise after eating fava beans or inhaling pollen from fava plants. Treating the symptoms linked with G6PD deficiency is usually as easy as removing the cause that is, treating the illness or infection or stopping the employ of a certain drug. However, a child with severe anemia may require treatment in the hospital to receive oxygen, fluids, and, if needed, a transfusion of healthy blood cells.

In uncommon cases, the deficiency can lead to other more graves health problems. Genetic counseling or inherited information may be of interest to carrier women and affected men. Patients must avoid wide beans (i.e., fava beans). Favism occurs only in the Mediterranean variety of G-6-PD deficiency. Shun oxidant drugs such as the antimalarial drugs primaquine, chloroquine, pamaquine, and pentaquine. Avoid sulfonamides such as sulfanilamide, sulfamethoxypyridazine, sulfacetamide, sulfadimidine, sulfa pyridine, sulfamerazine, and sulfamethoxazole.