[Clinical manifestations of porphyrin metabolism disorders]

Abstract

Aim: To characterize patients with various nosological unities [symbol: see text] of porphyria in accordance with their age, clinical symptoms, provoking factors, therapy and outcome.

Material and methods: Patients with acute intermittent porphyria (43), hereditary coproporphyria (8), variegate porphyria (3), porphyria cutanea tarda (7), hepatoerythropoietic porphyria (1), and hereditary erythropoietic porphyria (2) were studied. One patient was suspected of porphyria caused by deficiency of delta-aminolevulenic acid dehydrogenase.

Results: The patients were from the CIS. The overwhelming majority of them were young and middle-aged subjects. Rapid development of the disease and severe neurological symptoms were predominantly observed in patients with acute forms of porphyria.

Conclusion: Early diagnosis of porphyrin metabolism disorders makes it possible to decrease abruptly the number of cases leading to severe complications, disability, and fatal outcome. The use of inexpensive methods of screening of porphyrin metabolism disorders provides a promising approach to solving this problem. These methods should be used in municipal hospitals. In addition, asymptomatic carriers of defective gene should be revealed at the preclinical stage using various methods of molecular genetic assay.