Prevalence of hypercalcemia of malignancy in patients with solid tumors by measuring ionized calcium in tertiary care hospital

ABSTRACT

Background: Hypercalcemia is relatively common in patients with cancer, occurring in approximately 20 to 30 percent of cases. As ionized calcium is not routinely estimated in most of the clinical laboratories and calcium status of the patients is being assessed by estimation of total calcium. This may result in up to 30% cases to remain undetected for hypercalcemia. The diagnosis of hypercalcemia of malignancy if made early and managed properly, could reduce this debilitating complication and objective of this study was planned to find out the prevalence of hypercalcemia of malignancy in patient with solid tumors through measurement of ionized calcium