What are Porphyrins?
Porphyrins are natural chemicals in the body that help form many important substances in the body such as hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen in the blood. Porphyrins are normally present at low concentrations in blood and other body fluids, such as urine.
Why is this test performed?
Porphyrin tests are used to help diagnose and monitor a group of disorders called porphyrias. Porphyrias are a group of rare disorders. An important part of hemoglobin, called heme, is not made properly. Heme is also found in myoglobin, a protein found in certain muscles. There are seven types of porphyria, and each one is associated with a different enzyme deficiency. Most porphyrias are inherited, the result of a gene mutation. They may be classified according to the signs and symptoms of the disease as neurological, cutaneous, or both.
What are signs and symptoms?
The porphyrias that cause neurological symptoms present with acute attacks lasting days or weeks. Signs and symptoms during the attack include abdominal pain, constipation, confusion, hallucinations, and/or seizures. There are four neurologic porphyrias: acute intermittent porphyria (AIP), variegate porphyria (VP), hereditary coproporphyria (HCP), and the very rare ALA dehydratase deficiency porphyria (ADP). Some cases of VP and HCP may also have skin-related symptoms.
Optimal results:
Optimal results vary depending on the type of porphyrin tested. In general, for a 24-hour urine test of total porphyrins, the range is about 23.3 – 132.4 mcg/g creat.
References:
Abnormal results may be due to:
-Liver cancer
-Hepatitis
-Lead poisoning
-Porphyria (several types)
Understand and improve your laboratory results with our health dashboard.
Upload your lab reports and get your interpretation today.
Our technology helps to understand, combine, track, organize, and act on your medical lab test results.
Abnormal results may be due to:
-Liver cancer
-Hepatitis
-Lead poisoning
-Porphyria (several types)
Interpret Your Lab Results
Upload your lab report, and we'll interpret and provide you with recommendations today.
Get Started
Monthly plan
Annual plan
Own it for life
Our exclusive data entry service is a convenient way to get your results into your private dashboard. Simply attach an image or a file of your lab test results, and one of our qualified data entry team members will add the results for you. We support all sorts of files, whether PDFs, JPGs, or Excel. This service is excellent whether you have a lot of reports to upload or are too busy to do the data entry yourself.
We strive to make the data entry process easy for you. Whether by offering dozens of templates to choose from that pre-populate the most popular laboratory panels or by giving you instant feedback on the entered values. Our data entry forms are an easy, fast, and convenient way to enter the reports yourself. There is no limit on how many lab reports you can upload.
$15 /month
billed every month
Most popular
Data entry included
$79 /year
$6.60/month billed annually
Data entry included
$250 /once
own it for life
Are You a Health Professional?
Get started with our professional plan
Welcome to Healthmatters Pro.
Save time on interpreting lab results with the largest database of biomarkers online. In-depth research on any test at your fingertips, all stored and tracked in one place. Learn more
Pro Monthly Plus
for health professionals
$75 per month
At HealthMatters, we're committed to maintaining the security and confidentiality of your personal information. We've put industry-leading security standards in place to help protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of the information under our control. We use procedural, physical, and electronic security methods designed to prevent unauthorized people from getting access to this information. Our internal code of conduct adds additional privacy protection. All data is backed up multiple times a day and encrypted using SSL certificates. See our Privacy Policy for more details.
Albumin, 24 Hour Urine, Albumin, Urine, Alpha-1-Globulin, Urine, Alpha-2-Globulin, Urine, Appearance, Arsenic (Inorganic), Urine, Arsenic (Total), Urine, Arsenic, Urine 24 Hr, Bacteria, Beta Globulin, Urine, Bilirubin, Urine, Cadmium, Urine, Calcium Oxalate Crystals, Calcium, Urine, Calcium, Urine 24hr, Chloride, Urine, Color, Coproporphyrin I, Coproporphyrin III, Creatinine (CRT), Urine, Creatinine, Ur 24hr, Gamma Globulin, Urine, Glucose Qualitative, Urine, Heptacarboxyporphyrin, Hexacarboxyporphyrin, Hyaline Cast, Iodine, 24 Hr Urine, IODINE, RANDOM URINE, Iodine, Urine, Ketones, Urine, Lead, 24 hour urine, Lead, Urine, Leukocyte Esterase, Urine, M-Spike (Urine), Mercury, Urine, Mercury, Urine 24 Hr, Mercury/Creatinine Ratio, Urine, Mucus, Nitrite, Urine, Pentacarboxyporphyrin, Polymorphs, Porphyrins, Potassium, Urine, Protein, 24hr calculated (Urine), Protein/Creat Ratio, Pus Cells, Red Blood Cells (RBC), Urine, Sodium, Urine, Squamous Epithelial Cells, Total Porphyrins, Total Protein, Urine, Tripelphosphates, urine qualitative, Urine Occult Blood, Urine pH, Urine Specific Gravity, Urobilinogen Bilirubin, Urine, Uroporphyrin I, Uroporphyrin III, White Blood Cells (WBC), Urine
