Guillaume MP, Bol AF, Kleynen P, Supiot F, Karmali R; International Conference on AIDS.
Int Conf AIDS. 1996 Jul 7-12; 11: 121 (abstract no. Mo.B.1381).
Department of Medicine, Brugmann Hospital, Brussels, Belgium. Fax: 2/4789477.
Objectives: Assess the reliability of serum calcium, whether corrected or uncorrected, in evaluating calcium status in HIV-infected patients. serum calcium, albumin, gamma-globulin were measured prospectively in 54 HIV-infected patients. Corrected calcium was calculated according to albumin and/or gamma-globulin and compared to ionized calcium. Moreover these parameters were also related to serum iPTH. When uncorrected total calcium was considered (9.2 mg/dl plus or minus 0.65), 16 patients were hypocalcemic and 1 was hypercalcemic. If calcium was corrected according to albumin levels (9.2 mg/dl plus or minus 0.52), 25 patients could be classified as hypocalcemic and 1 hypercalcemic. When the correction was performed using both serum albumin and gamma-globulin (8.9 mg/dl plus or minus 0.35) 39 patients could be considered hypocalcemic whereas none was hypercalcemic. However when ionized calcium was measured (4.9 mmol/1 plus or minus 0.35), only 5 patients turned out to be hypocalcemic but on the contrary 5 patients were found to be hypercalcemic. This suggests that serum calcium, whether uncorrected or corrected, overestimates the number of hypocalcemic patients and underestimates those who are truly hypercalcemic. The correlation between ionized calcium and uncorrected total calcium (r= 0.74; p is less than 0.001) was better than the former and corrected calcium for the albumin level (r= 0.46; p is less than 0.001). No correlation was found between corrected calcium (for albumin and gamma-globulin) and ionized calcium. The fact that corrected calcium (according to albumin alone or albumin and gamma-globulin) is a poor reflection of the calcium status in HIV-infected patients is further witnessed by the absence of correlation between corrected calcium and iPTH, whilst there was a significant and negative correlation between ionized calcium and iPTH (r=0.49; p is less than 0.01). Trustworthy assessment of calcium metabolism in AIDS patients should not rely on correction of calcium according to proteins but rather should be solely based on ionized calcium measurements.
Publication Types:
Keywords:
- AIDS Vaccines
- Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
- Calcium
- Calcium Metabolism Disorders
- Calcium, Dietary
- HIV Infections
- HIV Seropositivity
- Humans
- Physical Examination
- Serum Albumin
- gamma-Globulins
- methods
- organization & administration
Other ID:
UI: 102217342
From Meeting Abstracts