Murtaza Ahsan Ansari, Ismail Hirani, Iqbal A Muhammad, Shabih H Zaidi, Jawaid Alam, Farzana Naqvi.
Consanguinity, as a cause of deafness and hearing impairment in Karachi.
Pak J Otolaryngol Jan ;20(2):22-6.

Consanguinity is common among Muslims all over the world. In Pakistan, different sects and linguistic communities of Muslims tend to marry within their religious bonds. Congenital sensorineural hearing loss is mainly an autosomal recessive condition, which is allegedly seen in increasing proportions among those who commonly practice consanguinity. The main purpose of our study was to evaluate the effects of consanguinity on genetic forms of deafness and to determine the mode of inheritance of genetic deafness. We studied randomly selected 250 children, studying in special schools of Karachi, and determined the causes of deafness with special reference to parental and grand parental consanguinity through a pedigree development. We found that those children who had familial deafness, were having the higher ratio of parental consauguinity, than those who had acquired or congenital but non genetic causes of deafness. So, we concluded that consanguinity is an important risk factor for genetic form of hearing loss, albeit with autosomal recessive mode of inheritance. Furthermore non-syndromic deafness is more common than syndromic form of deafness. We also found Usher is syndrome to affect a large consanguineous family, with autosomal recessive inheritance.

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