Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 13, 2026
Establishment of a Simple and Effective Rat Model for Intraoperative Parathyroid Gland Imaging
Published on: August 17, 2022
Successful minimally invasive parathyroidectomy for primary hyperparathyroidism without using intraoperative
David W Ollila1, Abigail S Caudle, William G Cance
1Division of Surgical Oncology, University of North Carolina, 3010 Old Clinic Building, CB #7213, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA.
Background:
The need for intraoperative parathyroid hormone (iPTH) assays in minimally invasive parathyroidectomy (MIP) remains controversial. We report the results of MIP performed without the use of iPTH assays.
Methods:
This was a single-institution retrospective review of patients with primary hyperparathyroidism treated with MIP between October 1, 1998, and December 31, 2002.
Results:
Seventy-seven patients were studied. The mean preoperative calcium level was 11.4 mg/dL. All patients had a normal calcium level postoperatively (range, 7.4-10.2 mg/dL, mean, 9.1 mg/dL). Three patients (4%) required re-exploration for various reasons including the development of a second adenoma, secondary hyperparathyroidism, and discordant pathology. All 3 patients initially were eucalcemic.
Conclusions:
Our success rate of 96% using a combination of preoperative sestamibi scans, intraoperative gamma probe localization, and selective frozen pathology is consistent with the published success rates using iPTH assays of 95% to 100%. We conclude that MIP can be performed successfully without using iPTH assays.
