Severe hypercalcemia in a patient with end-stage liver disease
Abstract
Severe hypercalcemia is commonly attributed to malignancy. Maintaining a broad differential diagnosis is important in patients with end-organ disease. We present a 47-year-old man with end-stage alcoholic cirrhosis who presented to the outpatient clinic with profound hypercalcemia. His albumin-corrected calcium was 16.8 mg/dL (SI: 4.2 mmol/L) (reference range, 8.5-10.1 mg/dL [SI: 2.1-2.5 mmol/L]) and he had an acute kidney injury. Laboratory evaluation revealed a suppressed parathyroid hormone. Imaging excluded malignancy. Workup for adrenal insufficiency suggested partial secondary disease as a contributing factor. With aggressive fluid hydration and corticosteroids, his symptoms and biochemistry improved. His calcium remained mildly elevated consistent with ongoing cirrhosis-related hypercalcemia. This case underscores the importance of maintaining a broad differential for severe hypercalcemia and considering cirrhosis itself as an etiologic factor.
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a case report, done in people. Its evidence level is 5 of 5 (Very low · case / narrative / animal / in vitro / in silico). Case reports, narrative reviews, and animal, cell or computer-model studies give the weakest evidence for human health.
Read the paper
Related studies
- The Prediction of the In Vitro Release Curves for PLGA-Based Drug Delivery Systems with Neural Networks
- Promising Ursolic Acid as a Novel Antituberculosis Agent: Current Progress and Challenges
- Proof of principle concept for the analysis and functional prediction of rare genetic variants in the CYP2C19 and CYP2D6 genes
- Fabrication, characterization, and docking studies of furosemide-loaded nanosponges using the emulsion solvent diffusion method
- The Effect of Concomitant Administration of Proton Pump Inhibitors on the Pharmacokinetics of CDK4/6 Inhibitors in Rats: Implications for the Evaluation of Hepatic and Transporter-Mediated Drug–Drug Interactions
- Mining the Metabolic Capacity of Clostridium sporogenes Aided by Machine Learning
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.