VITAMIN D INTOXICATION WITH METASTATIC CALCIFICATION

Abstract

The fact that irradiated ergosterol in sufficient dosage may produce toxic effects in both experimental animals and man was recognized soon after the discovery by Hess, Weinstock and Helman¹and by Steenbock and Black²that the irradiated sterols possessed antirachitic properties. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that experimental animals can be killed by sufficiently large doses of this product and that the outstanding pathologic finding in these animals is diffuse metastatic calcification involving chiefly the arterial vascular system and the kidneys. That these advanced changes can also occur in the human being and lead to death is not as well known. Because of the increasing tendency for the use of large doses of vitamin D in the treatment of a variety of conditions, it was felt worth while to report a fatal case resulting from the use of this drug and to review 5 previously reported cases of