Abstract

The faecal porphyrin patterns of 24 patients with porphyria cutanea tarda symptomatica (PCTS), eight patients with variegate porphyria, three patients with other types of porphyria, and 20 non-porphyrics subjects have been compared using a two-demensional thin layer chromatographic technique that separates porphyrins of the isocoproporphyrin series from other faecal porphyrins. The 'isocoproporphyrin': coproporphyrin ratio ranged from 0-1 to 5-6 for patients with PCTS, whereas in other types of porphyria and non-porphyric subjects it was 0-05 or less.