Systemic Amyloidosis as a Cause of So-called Atherosclerotic Complications

Overview

Background.
A survey of the pathogenesis, diagnostics and treatment of amyloidosis is presented, illustrated bylong-term clinical experience with the treatment of 28 patients with primary amyloidosis, 4 patients with familialand 7 patients with secondary amyloidosis.Methods and Results. To all patients combined treatment of glucocorticosteroids and cytostatics was administe-red. For primary amyloidosis methylprednisolone, vincristine (oncovine), cyclosphosphamide, alkeran, chlorethyl-nitrosourea (MOCCA), and in secondary amyloidosis cyclophosphamide, vincristine, prednisone (CVP). In allpatients, this treatment was combined with dimethylsulphoxide treatment (DMSO) administered in intravenousinfusion (5 g/100 ml saline) for 3-5 days before the start of cytostatic therapy. In primary amyloidosis the medianof survival was 48 months, in secondary amyloidosis the median survival was 72 months.Conclusions. The authors emphasise the need of an early diagnosis and start of comprehensive therapy completedin recent years successfully with immunomodulatory therapy using hydrolytic enzymes (WOBE MUGOS).

Key words:
systemic amyloidosis, therapy of amyloidosis, primary amyloidosis.