Psychiatric comorbidity in Wilson’s disease

Abstract

Wilson’s disease (WD) is a relatively rare autosomal recessive inherited disorder causing copper accumulation in different organs, mainly the liver and brain. Psychiatric disturbances represent a diagnostic and therapeutic issue in WD. A search for relevant articles was carried out on PubMed/Medline, Scopus, and Google Scholar, for papers focused on psychiatric disorders in WD published between 1985–2016. Ninety-two articles were included in this review, showing the findings from 35 observational and case-control studies and 57 case reports. This study discussed the findings on the prevalence of psychiatric symptoms in WD, their impact on the life of those diagnosed, and the efficacy of available treatments on the psychiatric outcomes of WD. Psychiatric disorders are confirmed frequent in WD, with a high prevalence of mood disorders, and contribute to worse Quality-of-Life and psychosocial outcomes. Because specific therapies for WD lead to a good life expectancy, adherence to medicaments and clinical monitoring should be warranted by a multidisciplinary approach, including a hepathologic, neurologic, and psychiatric careful evaluation and education of those affected and their relatives.

Keywords:

• Wilson’s disease
• psychiatric comorbidity
• quality-of-life
• mood disorders
• burden of disease

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.