Intestinal calcium absorption in patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis

Abstract

It has been reported recently that hypercalcemia might accompany active pulmonary tuberculosis. This change is more often encountered during the first weeks of antituberculous treatment, when hypercalcemia may be found in approximately 30–50% of the patients (Abbasi et al. 1979, Need et al. 1980, Kitrou et al. 1982). The mechanism(s) of this change remains as yet unknown. Measurements of immunoreactive serum parathyroid hormone in four patients showed low levels in three (Abbasi et al. 1979). On the basis of this finding Abbasi et al. (1979) suggested that hypercalcemia in pulmonary tuberculosis might be due to vitamin D overactivity, as is the case in sarcoidosis. This hypothesis would appear to be supported by the finding (Abbasi et al. 1979, Kitrou et al. 1982) that simultaneously to serum calcium increase during antituberculous treatment, there is an almost parallel increase in serum phosphorus. To test this hypothesis we decided to measure intestinal