Background and Aims: The impact of Borna Disease virus (BDV) in Asian psychiatric patients remains to be clear. Epidemiological studies would help to understand the rate of BDV incidence among different groups of patients with psychiatric disorders.
Objectives: A systematic review and meta-analysis on risk of BDV among Asian psychiatric patients.
Materials and Methods: Literature review was performed on the BDV prevalence in Asia. Data, including both subjects' characteristics and the epidemiology of the virus have been extracted and used for further meta-analysis on genomic and serological data. Odd ratio (OR) has been estimated by using comprehensive meta-analysis software V2. In this regard, I2 and Cochran’s Q-value have been evaluated for heterogeneity. Odds ratio (OR) has been investigated by the confidence interval (CI) of 95%. The Funnel plot and Egger’s and Begg’s statistics were used for evaluating the publication bias. P-value less than 0.05 considered as significant.
Results: Data revealed higher incidence of BDV RNA (5.902 95% CI, 3.97-8.775) in psychiatric patients. Odd ratio was also higher in seropositive patients in comparison with control group (2.334 95% CI, 1.829-2.952). It was also found that ELISA and western-blot methods might over-estimate BDV existence in patients and cause heterogeneity. Conclusions: High prevalence of BDV in psychiatric patients was found in Asia. Furthermore, the results obtained by ELISA and western blot are not reliable enough, which might be resulted from cross-reactive or closely related antibodies in human body fluids.