Generalized Arterial Calcification of Infancy

Abstract

In some 40 reported cases of arterial calcification of infancy the proved occurrence in siblings has been described once We report a further example of siblings affected by this disease. It has been described in children of either sex from the age of 1 day to 27 months, usually in the first six months of life. The clinical history and post-mortem appearances in most of the reported examples in early infancy are very similar. The children are born to apparently healthy young parents. The pregnancy and birth are normal, and there is no evidence of abnormal consumption by mother or child of poisons or poisonous dosages of calcifying substances. The infant thrives at first, then, after a few hours, or at the most a few days, of acute symptoms, succumbs from cardiac ischaemia. The symptoms are refusal of feeds, painful rapid respiration, abdominal distension, and heart failure. Occasionally, as in the first of our cases, an electrocardiogram may show the picture typical of coronary occlusion.