Consanguinity and disorders of sexual developments in the Sudan

Abstract EN

Background: Consanguinity is very common in the Sudanese society.

There is a lack of studies on consanguinity and its impact on genetic diseases in Sudan.

In this study we correlated Disorders of Sexual developments (DSDs), as an example of genetic conditions, in relation with consanguinity.

Material and Methods: A cohort of twenty six cases from 15 Sudanese families were diagnosed with DSD between the years 2008-2010, Diagnosis was done in Al-Neelian Medical Research Centre, Al-Neelain University, Sudan in collaboration with the University of Lübeck, Germany.

Results : parental consanguinity was seen in 70 %, 10 % were not consanguineous while 20 % did not provide a detailed family pedigree.

Conclusion : there is strong association between consanguinity and inheritance of DSDs in the Sudan, which is expected to be higher than that reported in the literature about non-consanguineous DSDs from western countries.