The Significance of Chelation Therapy in Heavy Metal Intoxication

Chelation therapy is a medical procedure used primarily to reduce the toxic effects of metal ions. Its application covers a wide range of disorders, from acute metal poisoning overload to genetic material metal intoxication. The use of chelating agents is, however, compromised by a number of serious side effects, which mainly are due to essential metals homeostasis disorders and their transport and the formation of depot complexes in certain organs. For this reason, chelation therapy is limited to certain critical cases and its application should be be put into clinical context, ie. Assess the risk-benefit ratio for the patient prior to use. In this article, properties and toxicity of heavy metals, heavy metal plant metabolism and chelation therapy and are highlighted, in brief.

Author(s):

Biljana Kalicanin* and Milica Todorovska Rasic

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