Kidney Transplant Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Kidney Transplant, including details on risks, prognosis, procedure, surgery, organ donation.

Reversibility of 'secondary hypercalcitoninemia' after kidney transplantation.

Borchhardt KA, Hörl WH, Sunder-Plassmann G

Department of Medicine III, Division of Nephrology and Dialysis, Medical University Vienna, Austria. kyra.borchhardt@meduniwien.ac.at

Whether the increase of calcitonin (CT) concentration in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) is reversible or not after kidney transplantation is not known. We examined the effect of kidney transplantation on basal and pentagastrin-stimulated CT in CKD patients with elevated screening CT levels. Before transplantation, the median basal CT concentration of 17 patients was 31 pg/mL (13-76), and decreased to 8 pg/mL (4-28) at 23 months (2-34) after kidney transplantation (p < 0.00005). The maximum concentration of pentagastrin-stimulated CT was 63 pg/mL (25-110) before transplantation and decreased to 20 pg/mL (8-91) (p < 0.00005) thereafter. There was a linear association between CT and calcium as well as between phosphorus and parathyroid hormone at the time of screening. After transplantation, CT correlated with serum creatinine. Therefore, the increase of CT concentration in patients with impaired kidney function presumably reflects 'secondary hypercalcitoninemia' due to C-cell hyperactivity.

Published 9 June 2005 in Am J Transplant, 5(7): 1757-63.
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