Objectives: There are limited pharmacological treatments for patients with neurological Wilson's disease (WD) and a history of copper-chelating treatment failure.
Methods: We retrospectively evaluated the clinical records of 38 patients with WD who were treated with sodium dimercaptopropanesulfonate (DMPS) and zinc (group 1) or zinc alone (group 2). All patients had a history of neurological deterioration during their previous treatment with D-penicillamine (DPA).
Results: Twenty-one patients were treated with intravenous DMPS for 4 weeks, followed by zinc gluconate for 6 months, and the treatment protocol was repeated twice. Relative to the baseline, repeated DMPS therapy and zinc maintenance therapy decreased neurological scores continuously (p < 0.01). Sixteen patients (76.2%) demonstrated neurological improvements after 1 year of therapy and four patients (19.0%) exhibited neurological deterioration at the follow-up session. In addition, 17 patients were treated with zinc monotherapy for 12 months. Two patients (11.8%) demonstrated neurological improvements and five patients (29.4%) exhibited neurological deterioration. Compared with the patients in group 2, a greater improvement ratio (p < 0.01) and lower deterioration ratio (p < 0.01) were observed in the patients in group 1 after 1 year of therapy.
Conclusions: Our findings indicate that the safety and efficacy of combined treatment of DMPS and zinc is superior to those of zinc monotherapy in patients with neurological WD with a history of DPA treatment failure.
Keywords: Wilson’s disease; copper; neurological deterioration; sodium dimercaptopropanesulfonate; zinc.