• Swiss medical weekly · Apr 2008

    Review

    Alpha-1 antitrypsin: now available, but do we need it?

    • Erich W Russi.
    • Pulmonary Division, Department of Internal Medicine, University Hospital, Zurich, Switzerland. erich.russi@usz.ch
    • Swiss Med Wkly. 2008 Apr 5; 138 (13-14): 191-6.

    AbstractSevere alpha1-antitrypsin (AAT) deficiency is the best characterised genetic risk factor for the development of emphysema. AAT has a wide spectrum of antiprotease activity and its primary function is inhibition of neutrophil elastase in the lung. Smokers with this genetic defect develop severe impairment in their fifth to sixth decade of life. Intravenous administration of human AAT is well tolerated and has been shown to increase the levels of AAT in the alveolar lining fluid of individuals with this deficiency. In contrast to the proof of the biochemical effectiveness of augmentation treatment, the favourable clinical effect of AAT on pulmonary function, emphysema progression, morbidity and survival has not been persuasively demonstrated by prospective controlled clinical trials and remains controversial.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…