cataract (hypocalcaemic)
Last reviewed 01/2018
Intrauterine or infantile hypocalcaemia may be responsible for congenital or infantile cataract. This may advance to maturity if the hypocalcaemia is untreated, or may be arrested at the stage of a lamellar cataract, whose location in the lens indicates the time of the metabolic insult. They are frequently bilateral.
Calcium ions have a profound effect on membrane permeability and it is likely that the cataract is produced by an increase in lens fibre membrane permeability produced by hypocalcaemia.