Normosang

Human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) successfully escapes from host immune surveillance, vaccines and antiretroviral agents. The available antiretroviral compounds can only control viremia, but it is impossible to eliminate the virus from the organism, namely because HIV-1 provirus persists in the reservoir cells from which the virus repeatedly disseminates into new cells. Current therapeutic approaches, however, do not specifically address the stage of virus reactivation. Heme has been demonstrated as very efficient in inhibiting HIV-1 reverse transcription, while its derivative hemin ameliorated HIV-1 infection via induction of heme oxygenase-1...

Based on Internet search, we were contacted by a 50-year-old man suffering from severe abdominal pain. Acute hepatic porphyria was considered from positive Watson-Schwartz test. He, not being a health professional, searched for centres with ability to do molecular diagnosis and for information about therapeutic possibilities. He asked his physician for haem-arginate (Normosang, Orphan Europe, Paris) treatment, arranged sending his blood to our laboratory and mediated genetic counselling for him and his family...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

The treatment with heme arginate of 47 attacks of acute hepatic porphyrias are presented. Distribution of patients into three groups of severity has shown that the best clinical response is obtained when the treatment starts in the first three weeks from the beginning of the symptoms and in patients without deep involvement of the nervous system. The decrease in elimination of the precursors of heme was about 60% (mean) in comparison to the preinfusion values, non corresponding firmly with the clinical improvement...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.