Prevalence of hypercalcemia in hospitalised patients: effects of "correction" for serum albumin values.
J Endocrinol Invest
; 28(5): RC15-7, 2005 May.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-16075918
ABSTRACT
Hypercalcemia is ideally detected by the measurement of serum ionised calcium. Because this is not widely available, in common clinical practice "albumin-corrected" calcium values are often utilized. Our study investigated whether the method used to measure serum albumin concentration may significantly interfere in the derived serum calcium values and, consequently, in the identification of hypercalcemic patients. In 170 consecutive patients admitted to our Department of Internal Medicine we measured serum total calcium, total protein, and albumin by colorimetric method; albumin concentration was also derived by electrophoresis assessment. After correcting serum calcium for colorimetrically (CA) and electrophoretically (EA) measured albumin values, the detected frequencies of hypercalcemia were compared, utilizing different cut-off limits (i.e. 11.0, 10.4 and 10.2 mg/dl). In our patients, the CA values were significantly lower than EA levels. As a consequence, EA-corrected calcium, as well as total calcium concentration were significantly lower than CA-corrected values. This may also account for the very different prevalence of hypercalcemic patients identified by serum total, EA-corrected and CA-corrected calcium values. Our data therefore indicate the importance of the method of albumin measurement in the determination of "corrected" calcium concentration.
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Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Albumina Sérica
/
Hipercalcemia
Tipo de estudo:
Prevalence_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limite:
Aged
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Idioma:
En
Revista:
J Endocrinol Invest
Ano de publicação:
2005
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Itália