Hepatic calcification in the course of hemodialysis.

Hepatocellular calcification is extremely rare and only one case has been recorded in the literature. The patient, a 74-yr-old Japanese woman, received hemodialysis for 5 months because of uremia due to chronic glomerulonephritis. Four months before death, she was once in a state of shock which lasted for 4 h due to massive hemorrhage from the shunt vein for hemodialysis. She died of disseminated intravascular coagulopathy and respiratory failure due to uremia. Postmortem liver biopsy showed centri- and midzonal necrosis associated with septal fibrosis where intracellular and extracellular calcification were noted. The calcifications were round or rod shaped and single or multiple in distribution. The calcification was thought to occur as the result of shock, which caused hepatocellular damage, due to consumption of a high calcium-phosphorus product.