Incidence by Cancer Type
Hypercalcemia occurs more frequently in some malignancies (e.g., breast cancer, multiple myeloma, and squamous cell carcinoma of the lung) than in others. Within each disease type, the incidence of hypercalcemia varies greatly in reported series. The frequency of hypercalcemia in some of the commonly involved neoplastic disorders is shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Incidence of Hypercalcemia by Tumor Typea| Tumor Type | Incidence (%) of Hypercalcemia of Malignancy | |
| aAdapted from Kaplan.[1] | ||
| Breast (with bone metastases) | 30–40 | |
| Multiple myeloma | 20–40 | |
| Squamous cell carcinoma of lung | 12.5–35 | |
| Squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck | 2.9–25 | |
| Renal cell carcinoma | 3–17 | |
| Lymphomas | ||
| Hodgkin lymphoma | 0.6–5.4 | |
| Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, high-grade | 14–33 | |
| T-cell lymphoma (human T-cell, lymphotrophic virus type 1) | 50 | |
| Other malignancies: ovary, liver, pancreas, esophagus, cervix | 7 | |
| Unknown primary | 7 | |
References
- Kaplan M: Hypercalcemia of malignancy. In: Yarbro CH, Wujcik D, Gobel BH, eds.: Cancer Nursing: Principles and Practice. 7th ed. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2010, pp 939-63.
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