A Case of Porphyria Presented During Management of Acute Upper Respiratory Infection

ABSTRACT

A 34-year old woman visited the hospital complaining severe general pain which had onset on the way of improvement of sore throat, cough with sputum as symptoms of acute upper respiratory infection for 3 days. The facts that her younger sister also had a history of porphyria and the color of the patient's urine changed to dark black after it had exposed to sunlight made us to rule out porphyria strongly. Therefore, we measured the level of delta-ALA and porphobilinogen in the collected urine during 24 hours, and confirmed her diagnosis as acute intermittent porphyria. The SIADH was complicated and the sleep disturbance, disorientation and hallucination onset during the hospital days. She had taken high dose dextrose IV and hematin IV therapy for porphyria and improved gradually. Therefore, authors et al. report a case of acute intermittent porphyria with various clinical symptoms on the way of treatment of upper respiratory infection as well as review the previous literatures.