INTOXICATION WITH VITAMIN D

Abstract

DESPITE a wide publicity in the medical literature on the dangers associated with the administration of large doses of preparations of vitamin D, (1–12) there are still many physicians who use these drugs without the necessary precautions which should be observed with substances potentially so toxic. During the past three years there have been recognized by us 11 instances of intoxication by such sterols. Ten of these patients had been given the drugs by practicing physicians who were not aware that the alarming symptoms exhibited were related to the therapy which they themselves were prescribing. The eleventh patient was one in whom we ourselves induced hypercalcemia with calciferol (crystalline vitamin D2) in an extraordinarily short period of time (fourteen days). Analysis of the observations made on these 11 patients forms the subject of this report. The age of the 10 patients who had been given the drug as a therapeutic measure against arthritis varied from 33 to 68 years. Except for the youngest, all were more than 40 years old. Five of the group were males; five were females. Four had received “Ertron,” two “Deltalin,” two “Davitin,” one “Dalsol” and one a combination of “Ertron” and “Darthronal.”1