La Revue de médecine interne
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Review Comparative Study
[62nd Congress of the American College of Rheumatology, San Diego, 8-12 November 1998].
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This review is aimed at presenting classification and diagnosis criteria of hepatic porphyrias and at proposing guidelines for diagnosis and management of these diseases. ⋯ Treatment of acute attacks by hematin completely changed the disease prognosis. Relationships between porphyria cutanea tarda and hepatitis C virus or hemochromatosis have also been clarified. However, several important issues are still not solved: for instance, pathogenesis of neuronal dysfunction that produces the acute attacks is poorly understood. Differences related to susceptibility to develop acute attacks are not known.