Cardiac Lesions in Children with "Hypercalcaemic" Facies

The factors causing congenital heart disease, apart from the well known effects of rubella in the mother during the first three months of pregnancy, are in general obscure. The association of congenital heart disease with Multiple non-cardiac abnormalities may form the basis for an investigation }nto other aetiological factors. The combination of cardiac defects with mfantile hypercalcaemia is a fairly recent discovery; the exact nature of this association is still not understood. In 1956 Schlesinger, Butler, and Black drew attention to the occurrence of a characteristic facial appearance in mfants with severe hypercalcaemia, and in 1964 Beuren et al. drew attention to the syndrome of supra-aortic stenosis and a similar facial appearance. The connection between these two apparently unrelated syndromes was Pointed out by Black and Bonham Carter (1963), who found that patients Previously seen with infantile hypercalcaemia were presenting later in life with cardiac defects, particularly aortic stenosis. It has since been suggested that the cardiac defects may be the result of the deposition of calcium during the phase of hypercalcaemia.