Background: Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency is the most common enzyme deficiency disease. Drugs that cause deficiency-related hemolytic responses include dapsone, which is taken as a therapeutic drug for Hansen's disease. Due to the hemolytic adverse effects, the deficiency test should be performed before the dapsone administration, but it is not conducted on the basis of low incidence in Korea. Thus, the monitoring of deficiency in patients with Hansen's disease was needed and the study was undertaken.
Objective: The aims of this study were to determine the prevalence of deficiency and gene mutations from persons affected by Hansen's disease in Korea.
Methods: Hemanalysis and activity test by venipuncture were performed against the 339 persons affected by Hansen's disease. All subjects were tested for detection of mutations by the polymerase chain reaction.
Results: The prevalence of anemia was 45.5% and the prevalence of deficiency was 1.2% from persons affected by Hansen's disease. 2 gene mutations, Mahidol and Mediterranean, were detected in foreign participants (Myanmar and Nepal).
Conclusion: In this study, we detected that the prevalence of deficiency and gene mutation was low, thus inferred that anemia was relatively less relevant to deficiency in persons affected by Hansen's disease. However, the number of participant in our study is small, and many studies reported that deficiency test should be performed before the dapsone administration, therefore, we suggest that continuous monitoring of patients with Hansen's disease is necessary.
|