Penicillamine
chemical compound
Penicillamine, sold under the brand name of Cuprimine among others, is a medication primarily used for the treatment of Wilson's disease. It is also used for people with kidney stones who have high urine cystine levels, rheumatoid arthritis, and various heavy metal poisonings. It is taken by mouth.
Penicillamine was approved for medical use in the United States in 1970. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines.
Medical uses
It is used as a chelating agent:
In Wilson's disease, a rare genetic disorder of copper metabolism, penicillamine treatment relies on its binding to accumulated copper and elimination through urine. Succimer (dimercaptosuccinic acid) is increasingly used in place of penicillamine.
Penicillamine was the second line treatment for arsenic poisoning, after dimercaprol (BAL). It is no longer recommended.
In cystinuria, a hereditary disorder in which high urine cystine levels lead to the formation of cystine stones, penicillamine binds with cysteine to yield a mixed disulfide which is more soluble than cystine.
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This entry incorporates text from “Penicillamine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.