Abstract.
The historical use of metallic gold and gold complexes in medicine is briefly outlined. Currently, there is a large body of opinion that they belong to another age, are no longer relevant and that there are more-than-adequate successors to replace them. Nevertheless some challenging questions remain:
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(1)
Should we now ignore their remarkable properties for ameliorating rheumatoid arthritis, even inducing remissions and for preventing arthritis development in animals?
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(i)
What mechanisms underlie their clinical activity?
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(ii)
Can some of the adverse effects of traditional therapy with gold-thiolate complexes be reduced/prevented by either modifying their formulations, or by using some of their bio-transformation products at much lower doses?
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(iii)
Are they equivalent, perhaps even superior to biological DMARDs (anti-TNFα, anti-IL-1), and if so, more cost effective?
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This article is dedicated to the memory of Carl Wilhelm Scheele, 1742-1786, the remarkable Swedish pharmacist who made the original discovery that eventually gave us novel insights into the biochemical reactivity of gold.
Received 4 July 2007; revised 31 August 2007; accepted 10 September 2007
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Whitehouse, M.W. Therapeutic gold. Is it due for a come-back?. Inflammopharmacol 16, 107–109 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10787-007-0022-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10787-007-0022-9