Gold therapy gastrointestinal effects

Adverse Side Effects. Adverse effects are relatively common with gold therapy, with approximately one third of patients experiencing some form of toxic effect.84 The primary side effects caused by gold compounds are gastrointestinal distress (diarrhea, indigestion), irritation of the oral mucosa, and rashes and... 

Adverse side effects of gold treatments include stomatitis, rash, and proteinuria. Complete blood counts and urinalysis should be performed before each or every other injection of gold compounds. Pmritic skin rash and stomatitis are more common adverse effects that may resolve, if therapy is withheld for a few weeks and then restarted cautiously at a lower dose. Oral gold causes less mucocutaneous, bone marrow, and renal toxicity than injectable gold, but more diarrhea and other gastrointestinal reactions appear. 

The most common adverse effects of auranofin are gastrointestinal. About half of all users have loose stools at some time during treatment this effect can be transient, can occur at any time, and is rarely severe. No infective cause or signs of malabsorption has been found in any case and neither was gold absorption adversely affected. In a long-term study, diarrhea was mainly observed in the first 6 months of therapy with auranofin 6 mg/day in 8% of the cases this was a reason for withdrawal (44). There is experimental evidence in animals of a direct effect of auranofin on ion and water absorption from the intestine with inhibition of enterocjde Na+/K+-ATPase activity (SED-12, 525). 

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