Analgesic concerns in glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase-deficient dental patients: myth or reality?

Certain military dental records contain medical advisory sheets warning that the patients have deficiencies of the enzyme glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase and warn that certain medications, including many commonly used analgesics, should not be given, or should be given only with extreme caution, in those patients. A review of the literature does not support that advisory and there is little evidence to suggest that short-term therapeutic administration of these essential medications will pose a threat of hemolytic reaction in dental patients. There are no reported cases found of such a reaction in the dental literature, and this survey of 19 military patients failed to identify even one case that had problems. From a dental treatment standpoint, the concern over short-term medication regimens in these patients following dental surgery or treatment is unsubstantiated. There appears to be little rationale for the dental records of these patients to contain medical precautionary sheets.