UK Calciphylaxis Study

Information for Healthcare Professionals

Calcific uraemic arteriolopathy or calciphylaxis as it is frequently called is a syndrome of medial calcification of small arteries leading to painful ischaemia, usually of the skin, almost exclusively found in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD).The pathophysiology remains poorly understood but recent advances in vascular biology have demonstrated that vascular calcification is a highly regulated process. If this process can therefore be comprehensively examined through phenotypic, genotypic and proteomic analysis, the opportunity to identify therapeutic targets within or without the current therapeutic armamentarium and design intervention studies in calciphylaxis may become feasible..

UK ethical approval has been granted and the study has been adopted onto the CRN national portfolio. Please contact Lesley Haydock first for advice on how to recruit patients. You will then need to contact your local R+D Dept but should then be free to register your patient once informed consent has been obtained.

The study aims to determine the following:

• What is the natural history of the disease?
• What risk factors are associated with development and progression of calciphylaxis?
• Which treatments currently in clinical practice confer a favourable outcome?
• What are the underlying disease processes?

These aims will be achieved by collecting information on medications, clinical parameters, local laboratory tests, measuring specific proteins and molecules in blood and tissue as well as studying patient’s DNA profiles.