A multicentre survey of serum calcium levels in patients with malignant diseases.

Serum calcium and albumin levels were measured in 255 patients with a confirmed diagnosis of malignant disease. The average serum calcium and albumin levels were similar to those reported in an earlier larger American survey. Only 6/255 patients were above the normal range of corrected serum calcium and one patient was sufficiently hypercalcaemic (corrected serum calcium at least 2.8 mmol/L) to be included in a trial of oral clodronate therapy. The incidence of hypercalcaemia in this survey is considerably lower than that reported in the published literature (5-10%). A much larger proportion of patients (21/255) were hypocalcaemic. Serum albumin was depressed in 25/255 cases and elevated in 2/255 cases.