Calciphylaxis

Calciphylaxis (kal-si-fuh-lack-sis) is a rare, painful and deadly disease that causes calcium deposits to form in your blood vessels and block blood flow. This leads to areas where skin and tissue just underneath break down and die.

In most cases of calciphylaxis, calcium deposits form in blood vessels that supply your skin and the tissue just underneath it. In rare cases, deposits can form internally in your eyes, lungs, brain, muscles and intestines.

When it affects surface tissue like skin, calciphylaxis is extremely painful. It also causes the affected area to become an open wound, like a bedsore. The skin and tissue around that wound die, and the damage from the dead tissue spreads outward. These calciphylaxis wounds are slow to heal and can lead to major complications.

Infection in a wound can spread through your body and cause an overreaction of your immune system called sepsis. This condition is the most dangerous and deadliest complication of calciphylaxis.

Types of calciphylaxis

Calciphylaxis has two types based on when they happen.

• Uremic (you-reem-ick). This type is the more common of the two, making up the majority of cases. This typically happens in people who are on dialysis because of end-stage kidney disease (ESKD). That means they’re in the later stages of kidney failure and need dialysis to filter waste from their blood.
• Non-uremic. This type is much less common. It happens in people who have earlier stages of kidney disease, who have a recent injury to one or both kidneys or who don’t have kidney problems at all (rarely).

How common is calciphylaxis?

Calciphylaxis is very rare. In people who are on dialysis, it happens to about 35 of every 10,000 people (or about one-third of 1%). In the United States, there are just over 550,000 people on dialysis, so just under 2,000 cases of calciphylaxis happen on average each year. In countries with lower rates of kidney disease, calciphylaxis is much rarer.

Calciphylaxis is more common in people assigned female at birth (AFAB). They’re twice as likely to develop the condition as people assigned male at birth (AMAB).