Current Drug Managements of Wilson’s Disease: From West to East

Abstract Wilson's disease (WD), also called hepatolenticular degeneration, is an autosomal recessive inheritance disorder of copper metabolism characterized by the multiple mutations in the ATP-ase 7B gene of chromosome 13q. About half of the WD patients have neurological or psychiatric symptoms. As WD is one kind of the medicable or nearly curable neurodegenerative disease in the field of medicine, early consideration/examination and without delay/ life-long treatment usually lead to better prognoses. The drugs, also named as anticopper agents, commonly used in clinic include D-penicillamine, trientine, sodium dimercaptosuccinate, dimercaptosuccinic acid, zinc and tetrathiomolybdate. This article reviews detailedly about these medicines.