Dear Editors,Hypocalcemia is not unusual in patients hospitalized for critical illness and has
also been described after general surgery in addition to head and neck surgical
procedures 1
2
3. Hypocalcemic events commonly
occur in the setting of massive blood transfusion, albumin deficiency, vitamin D
deficiency, and/or hypomagnesemia. In the absence of these factors, only
slight decreases in calcium levels within the normal range have been reported during
surgical procedures 1. Cytoreductive surgery
with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) causing asymptomatic
hypocalcemia has only been reported in two previous studies 4
5.
The etiology is unclear. We here report a patient who developed severe symptomatic
hypocalcemia likely as a result of a profound inflammatory reaction with transient
hypoparathyroidism after HIPEC.