Calcitonin: Understanding Its Role in Health & Disease

The calcitonin hormone is produced by cells in the thyroid gland. Calcitonin is involved in the control of calcium and phosphorous metabolism and works in association with parathyroid hormone. Calcitonin is produced as a larger protein that needs to be activated by enzymes.

Diagnostic

• Elevated levels of calcitonin can indicate forms of cancer. Prat and colleagues in a 2008 article in the journal "Leukemia and Lymphoma" showed that pro-calcitonin is raised in patients with bacterial infection. Further, Schuetz and colleagues in a 2010 article in the journal "Expert Review of Anti-Infective Therapy" showed that pro-calcitonin was useful in determining which patients should receive antibiotics.

Effects

• Calcitonin hormone lowers calcium in the blood by encouraging cells in the bone to store it, whereas parathyroid hormone encourages bone to release calcium.

Therapy

• Calcitonin is currently being studied for use in preventing fractures in women with osteoporosis due to its ability to cause bone to store calcium. This research follows work done in the late 1990s; specifically, in an article published in the journal "Oncology Reports" in 1998, Sekine and Takami reported that calcitonin in combination with pamidronate could control high calcium levels. The authors also showed that this treatment could reduce the pain cause by cancer that had spread to the bones.