ArticleInternational journal of emergency medicine2025
Mortality and reproducibility of calcium measurements in patients with hypercalcemia reporting to the emergency department of a tertiary German hospital.
Article in International journal of emergency medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSevere hypercalcemia often results in the referral of patients to the emergency department (ED), as life-threatening consequences are feared. However, the available literature concerning the causes of hypercalcemia, mortality and therapeutic responses in these patients is scarce.
methodsWe retrospectively analyzed a cohort of 1310 patients with a total serum calcium concentration ≥ 2.65 mmol/l, who reported to the ED of the University Hospital Cologne, Germany, between January 1st, 2010, and March 31st, 2021, for any reason, investigating hypercalcemia-associated diagnoses, ECG changes, symptoms of hypercalcemia, the course of calcium values over the first 5 days and hospital mortality.
resultsThe most common causes of hypercalcemia were malignancies, primary hyperparathyroidism and dehydration. Patients with sarcoidosis and vitamin D intoxication had the highest mean calcium levels at presentation. In patients with mild hypercalcemia, elevated total calcium values were often not reproducible in consecutive samples. Hypercalcemia due to dehydration, sepsis and subsequent to cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) resulted in lower mean calcium levels, which quickly normalized in the following days. Hypercalcemia was well controlled with the applied therapies, even in the majority of patients who died during their hospital stay. We found no major abnormalities in the ECG analysis, and no death due to cardiac arrhythmias was documented in the patient charts. The mortality rate of patients varied greatly depending on the cause of hypercalcemia. Patients with malignancies had high mortality irrespective of total calcium levels at admission, whereas patients with sarcoidosis and hyperparathyroidism had low mortality despite high calcium levels.
conclusionWe found no evidence for acute death due to hypercalcemia. The degree of hypercalcemia might not be the main factor influencing mortality in these patients. Given that mild hypercalcemia is often not reproducible in consecutive blood samples, persistent hypercalcemia should be confirmed before further work-up is initiated.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.