Calciphylaxis is a rare syndrome mostly affecting patients with secondary hyperparathyroidism and in some cases with functional protein C or protein S deficiency. Skin lesions begin as superficial painful patches that progress to deep necrotic lesions. The findings are often misdiagnosed as livedo vasculitis and the prognosis is poor. Histopathologically, calcification in the media of small arteries and arterioles with intimal hyperplasia is seen. It is unclear if this morphologic hallmark is pathogenetic. Therapeutically, the calcium-phosphate product should be lowered pharmacologically by an intensified and modified dialysis treatment and parathyroidectomy.

Based on a sample of 953 subjects without known metabolic abnormalities and a sample of 186 diabetics a classification rule was developed by a quadratic discriminant analysis. The measurements of blood glucose 1 and 2 h after the oral administration of 100 g oligosaccharids are used to classify the patients into the categories of "healthy", "suspect" and "diabetic". The rates of false positive and false negative classification were estimated from a second sample of 128 non-diabetic and 73 diabetics. By administration of 100 g oligosaccharids these rates were found to be 3.1% and 0%, respectively. An analogous study for the administration of 100 g glucose was based on a different sample of N = 472, 99 diabetics included. Misclassification rates were found to be 1.6% and 2.7%, respectively. For practical application of the rules two-dimensional netplanes are given.

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