Universal newborn screening - is it going to be a reality in India?

Universal newborn screening is quite well established in most of the developed countries. In India, the exact prevalence of various metabolic disorders is not known due to lack of any large scale multicentric study to screen metabolic disorders and absence of any organized system of universal newborn screening. Like other developing countries, India is facing an increasing challenge of noncommunicable diseases, of which many are preventable. Endocrinopathies and other genetic/metabolic diseases constitute an important proportion of such problems. The unique clinical dilemma with these disorders is that either they are asymptomatic or have only non-specific signs and symptoms in the early stages, thereby rendering their early diagnosis almost impossible without a screening program. Some of these disorders like congenital hypothyroidism have a debilitating impact on the developing neonatal brain, if not diagnosed early.