Question: What are the treatments for Porphyria ?
Answer: Treatment for porphyria depends on the type of porphyria the person has and the severity of the symptoms.
Acute Porphyrias
A health care provider treats acute porphyrias with heme or glucose loading to decrease the livers production of porphyrins and porphyrin precursors. A patient receives heme intravenously once a day for 4 days. Glucose loading involves giving a patient a glucose solution by mouth or intravenously. Heme is usually more effective and is the treatment of choice unless symptoms are mild. In rare instances, if symptoms are severe, a health care provider will recommend liver transplantation to treat acute porphyria. In liver transplantation, a surgeon removes a diseased or an injured liver and replaces it with a healthy, whole liver or a segment of a liver from another person, called a donor. A patient has liver transplantation surgery in a hospital under general anesthesia. Liver transplantation can cure liver failure. More information is provided in the NIDDK health topic, Liver Transplantation.
Cutaneous Porphyrias
The most important step a person can take to treat a cutaneous porphyria is to avoid sunlight as much as possible. Other cutaneous porphyrias are treated as follows:
- Porphyria cutanea tarda. A health care provider treats porphyria cutanea tarda by removing factors that tend to activate the disease and by performing repeated therapeutic phlebotomies to reduce iron in the liver. Therapeutic phlebotomy is the removal of about a pint of blood from a vein in the arm. A technician performs the procedure at a blood donation center, such as a hospital, clinic, or bloodmobile. A patient does not require anesthesia. Another treatment approach is low-dose hydroxychloroquine tablets to reduce porphyrins in the liver. - Erythropoietic protoporphyria. People with erythropoietic protoporphyria may be given beta-carotene or cysteine to improve sunlight tolerance, though these medications do not lower porphyrin levels. Experts recommend hepatitis A and B vaccines and avoiding alcohol to prevent protoporphyric liver failure. A health care provider may use liver transplantation or a combination of medications to treat people who develop liver failure. Unfortunately, liver transplantation does not correct the primary defect, which is the continuous overproduction of protoporphyria by bone marrow. Successful bone marrow transplantations may successfully cure erythropoietic protoporphyria. A health care provider only considers bone marrow transplantation if the disease is severe and leading to secondary liver disease. - Congenital erythropoietic porphyria and hepatoerythropoietic porphyria. People with congenital erythropoietic porphyria or hepatoerythropoietic porphyria may need surgery to remove the spleen or blood transfusions to treat anemia. A surgeon removes the spleen in a hospital, and a patient receives general anesthesia. With a blood transfusion, a patient receives blood through an intravenous (IV) line inserted into a vein. A technician performs the procedure at a blood donation center, and a patient does not need anesthesia.
Secondary Porphyrinurias
Conditions called secondary porphyrinurias, such as disorders of the liver and bone marrow, as well as a number of drugs, chemicals, and toxins are often mistaken for porphyria because they lead to mild or moderate increases in porphyrin levels in the urine. Only highnot mild or moderatelevels of porphyrin or porphyrin precursors lead to a diagnosis of porphyria.