News
Alpha, "Baywatch" Alum Featured in Article Disputing Myths
Former Baywatch actor Melissa Biggs was diagnosed with Alpha-1 at the age of 34 after a second spell of pneumonia prompted her to seek additional help. Upon being referred to a critical care specialist, Biggs was told she only had 2 years left to live.
A portion of her story is told in the following article published on AMedNews.com. The piece is titled “More to know about COPD: Disputing the myths about an under diagnosed disease”, and was featured in an earlier News item on the AlLpha-1 web site.
Biggs is mentioned under MYTH: Alpha-1 COPD is untreatable:
Since she was a child, Melissa Biggs was chronically ill with colds, sore throats and upper respiratory conditions. But it wasn’t until the 34-year-old former “Bay Watch” actress had her second bout of pneumonia that she went to an allergy specialist for help.
“She drew nine vials of blood, did scratch tests,” Biggs says. “She said I was severely allergic and diagnosed me as a stoic asthmatic.” Weeks later, after further testing, the allergist diagnosed Biggs with an Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency, the only known genetic cause of COPD.
Almost 40% of COPD is missed by primary care physicians.
Biggs was referred to a critical care specialist. “He said, ‘I don’t know much, but what I do know [is that] it is rare and it is fatal. I give you two years.’” Biggs, a single mother, says she went into a depression, but she also found out more. “I learned that my doctor was grossly misinformed. It’s treatable and it’s not rare. It’s rarely diagnosed.”
The average alpha-1 deficient patient has symptoms for 7.2 years and sees three different doctors before getting a correct diagnosis, says D. Kyle Hogarth, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center. He also directs its Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency Clinical Resource Center.
Alpha-1 Antitrypsin is an anti-inflammatory protein that shields the lung’s delicate tissues by binding to neutrophil elastase—a normal lung enzyme that digests bacteria and other foreign substances. Without alpha-1, this digestion goes unchecked, eventually damaging healthy lung tissue. According to a study by the Respiratory & Allergic Disease Foundation, alpha-1 is estimated to affect up to 100,000 Americans, but nearly 95% are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.
Knowing whom to screen appears to be one of the missing links.
“Our surveillance study found that physicians cannot depend on typical patient profiles to assess whether AAT deficiency screening is necessary,” says Dr. Hogarth, the lead author of a study presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians in October 2007. A number of patients who normally would not be screened based on suggested guidelines turned out to be positive for AAT deficiency. “In the real-world setting, this suggests that thousands of patients who have been diagnosed with COPD or severe asthma may actually have alpha-1.”
Study findings suggest that all patients with moderate or severe persistent asthma and/or COPD should be tested for AAT deficiency, says Gary Rachelefsky, MD, one of the investigators and a professor of allergy and immunology and director of the Executive Care Center for Asthma, Allergy and Respiratory Diseases at California’s UCLA School of Medicine. “It is imperative that clinicians become more vigilant about alpha-1 testing.”
For information on the complete article, see this NEWS item.
