What Do The Following Calcium Readings Indicate?

Posted on Mon, 27 Jul 2015

Question: Hi,
Checking for my wife. She is 63 and in good health. We're concerned about her calcium readings. Blood work for the past few years:

Date Calcium Vitamin D PTH Albumin
6/15 10.7 34 4.8
8/14 10.3 35 5.0
1/11 10.7 33 4.8

Is this concerning? Any risk of cancer?
Parathyroid?

Thanks or your help.

Answered by Dr. Binu Parameswaran Pillai (27 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Normal corrected calcium levels.

Detailed Answer:
Good day,
Noted your concerns. Need to know the calcium normal range for that particular laboratory. In most cases, we take upper limit of normal as 10.5. Again, calcium results have to be corrected based on albumin levels. In that case, the last corrected calcium level is around 10.1 which is normal. Vitamin D level also is good. PTH of 35 also is good. All these are good and not at all alarming.

Hope you had the calcium test on fasting. Did she have a phosphorus test ( fasting) anytime??
Regards
Binu

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar

Follow up: Dr. Binu Parameswaran Pillai (10 minutes later)

Thanks for the prompt response. Normal lab values are 8.6 to 10.4, and yes, she had fasted. No phosphorous test.............but she has taken calcium tablets (tums) for the last 5 years or so, and Vitamin D (2000) for the last 6 months or so.

Can you explain in lay terms what is a corrected calcium level?

Thanks very much.

Answered by Dr. Binu Parameswaran Pillai (8 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Corrected calcium

Detailed Answer:
Her Calcium levels are excellent and is in normal range ( high normal range).

Calcium levels will change based on albumin levels. We do have to do some calculation based on albumin levels and adjust the calcium levels.

We take normal albumin as 4.

Corrected calcium is = Patient's calcium + { ( 4 - patient's albumin) x 0.8 }

So her corrected calcium = 10.7 + { (4 - 4.8) x 0.8} and the result is 10.06 mg/dl.

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY normal calcium result

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar