Consanguinity and XXXX in South India: analysis of a five-year study.

@entity1 @entity227 @entity74 @entity6391
OBJECTIVE: Consanguineous marriage is a widely practised social custom in Asia and northern Africa. In south India, Dravidian Hindus have contracted consanguineous marriages for over 2,000 years. In the present study, the influence of consanguinity on the prevalence of @entity227 was examined in @entity1 attending a specialist genetic eye clinic. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: A total of 2,335 @entity1 attending Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai, India, were screened for @entity74 over a five-year period. The @entity1 were drawn from all parts of India and from neighbouring countries in south Asia. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Six hundred and seventy-three (28.8%) of the @entity1 tested for ophthalmic @entity74 reported a family history of consanguinity. The majority (n = 574) of these families were from south India. In the @entity1 group as a whole, the most common form of consanguineous union was between first cousins (n = 367), followed by uncle/niece marriage (n = 177), equivalent to a mean coefficient of inbreeding alpha = 0.0202. Among the consanguineous families, 430 of 673 (63.9%) had @entity6391 , 167 of these cases were autosomal recessive and 199 were isolated cases. The public in regions such as south India should be made aware of the merits and demerits of consanguineous marriages.
