Senior Advisor & Head, Department of Psychiatry, Command Hospital (GC), Lucknow.
Indian J Psychiatry. 1989 Oct;31(4):319-28.
A sample of 805 psychotic patients belonging to different groups was screened for acute hepatic porphyria during 1975 to 1987 by observing urinary colour change on standing to brown red colour and for positive Waston-Schwartz test, indicating increase in urinary porphobilinogen which is diagnostic of acute hepatic porphyria. 27.95% cases had shown positivity which was further confirmed by quantitative estimation using spectrophotometric method of Rimington. However, when these positive cases were subjected to more specific tests viz, additional butanol extraction modification to Watson-Schwartz test and quantitative estimation of porphobilinogen by ion-exchange resin coloumn chromatographic method of Mauzerall & Grannick, only 1.12% could confirm their positivity. These cases were only, diagnosed as acute hepatic porphyria. The positivity to the non specific, yet accepted diagnostic tests for acute porphyria observed in remaining 26.8% psychotics was an amazing unexplained phenomenon. It was suggestive of the presence of a non specific porphyric activity.
1975 年至 1987 年期间，通过观察尿液静置后变为红棕色的颜色变化和阳性 Watson-Schwartz 试验，对属于不同组别的 805 名精神病患者样本进行了急性肝性卟啉症筛查，该试验表明尿卟胆原增加，这是急性肝性卟啉症的诊断依据。27.95%的病例呈阳性，这通过 Rimington 分光光度法的定量估计进一步得到证实。然而，当这些阳性病例接受更具体的测试时，即 Watson-Schwartz 试验的额外丁醇提取改良和 Mauzerall & Grannick 的离子交换树脂柱色谱法的卟胆原定量估计，只有 1.12%的病例能够证实其阳性。这些病例仅被诊断为急性肝性卟啉症。在其余 26.8%的精神病患者中，非特异性但被接受的急性卟啉症诊断测试的阳性率是一个令人惊讶的无法解释的现象。这表明存在非特异性卟啉活性。
