The Clinical Value of Routine Serum Calcium Analysis

Abstract

The results are presented of routine serum Ca determinations on nearly 12,000 consecutive individual patients presenting themselves to our institution for clinical evaluation. Nine cases of hyperpara-thyroidism were discovered for an incidence of 0.075%. Only 1 of these 9 had symptoms or signs which would ordinarily make one suspect the diagnosis. Also, 3 cases of hypoparathyroidism were discovered so that the incidence of definite abnormalities of parathyroid function was 0.1%. Other abnormalities of clinical importance discovered by this technique were: 2 cases of milk-alkali syndrome, 1 case of hypervitaminosis D, 1 case of multiple myeloma and 5 cases of hypercalcomia associated with malignancy. This incidence of abnormalities emphasizes the clinical value of this type of survey.