Risk factors for porphyria cutanea tarda -the iron/HFE connection

摘要

We thank Dr Castiella and colleagues (1) for their interest in our recent review (2). We agree that the role and importance of HFE genetic variations as risk factors for hepatic iron loading and for pathogenesis of porphyria cutanea tarda are variable. As they again point out, their recent report failed to find a significantly increased prevalence of either the C282Y or the H63D mutations in HFE among 54 subjects from the Basque region of Spain (3, 4).