Calciphylaxis after renal transplant. Three clinical cases report

Introduction: Calciphylaxis (CFX) is a syndrome characterized by deposition of calcium in the intima and media of vessels, intimal proliferation, fibrosis, luminal thrombosis, tissue ischemia and necrosis. Its initial report and subsequent descriptions were associated with chronic renal failure. There is little information regarding the possible effect of the recovery of renal function secondary to kidney transplantation in the incidence of this disease. Methods: Center retrospective study. We analyze in this report the three cases of patients who developed CFX after a renal transplant within a cohort of 448 kidney and kidney-pancreas transplant patients from January 1th 2001 to January 1th 2014 in our Hospital. Results: Three patients were found to have CFX. All of them had hypercalcemia (serum calcium average 11.5 mg/dl) at first year post transplant and 2 patients at diagnosis of CFX. PTHi in the three CFX patients was 2 pg/ml, 62,3pg/ml and 3561pg/ml respectively. Hypoalbuminemia was found in all patients. Two patients were diabetic. Only one patient was obese and under anticoagulation treatment. In all cases a biopsy provided the diagnosis of certainty for calciphylaxis. Median serum creatinine at diagnosis was 1.5 mg/dl (1.2 mg/dl 1.2 mg/dl and 2 mg/dl, respectively) and the average time between transplantation and calciphylaxis diagnosis was 32 months. In all cases, strict control of phosphorus and hypercalcemia and sodium IV thiosulfate treatment was performed. The evolution was successful in two patients, controlling blood calcium and improving cutaneous manifestations with preservation of renal function. Conclusions: CFX prevalence in a cohort of 448 kidney and kidney-pancreas transplant patients from 2001 to 2014 was 0.66%, less than reported in dialysis patients. Factors associated with CFX in our patients were hypercalcemia in the first year after renal transplant and at the time of the event, hypoalbuminemia, diabetes and disorders of the parathyroid gland. The persistence of hypercalcemia in the first year after renal transplant should be an element of high clinical suspicion of this complication in the kidney transplant recipients.