CASE REPORT
A Simplified Approach to the Management of Hypercalcemia
Ravneet Bajwa1, Ami Amin1, Bhavika Gandhi1, Sarmed Mansur1, Alireza Amirpour1, Tejas Karawadia1, Priya Patel1, Eric J. Costanzo1, Mohammad A. Hossain1, *, Jennifer Cheng2, Mayurkumar Patel3, Tushar Vachharajani4, Arif Asif1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2018Volume: 11
First Page: 22
Last Page: 27
Publisher ID: TOUNJ-11-22
DOI: 10.2174/1874303X01811010022
Article History:
Received Date: 15/03/2018Revision Received Date: 27/05/2018
Acceptance Date: 28/05/2018
Electronic publication date: 29/06/2018
Collection year: 2018
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Introduction:
While patients with hypercalcemia can be treated with various treatment options including volume expansion, loop diuretics, calcitonin, bisphosphonate, sensipar; hypercalcemia can be resistant to these measures.
Case Description:
In this report, we present two elderly patients with hypercalcemia resistant to traditional therapy. Both had parathyroid tumor. Early diagnosis could not be established. Both patients required hemodialysis. Hypercalcemia was controlled in the 74-year old who successfully underwent surgery with normalization of calcium level. The 79-year old was not considered a surgical candidate and was transitioned to hospice.
Discussion & Conclusion:
Primary hyperparathyroidism is an important cause of hypercalcemia. In order to reduce morbidity and mortality, its diagnosis must be established earlier on. These case reports prepared with residents/junior faculty will benefit other trainees with the diagnosis and management of refractory hypercalcemia and highlight a teaching point that prompt diagnosis of primary hyperparathyroidism can have a major positive impact on the overall management of hypercalcemia.
