Gallbladder adenocarcinoma and paraneoplastic parathyroid hormone mediated hypercalcemia

Parathyroid hormone mediated hypercalcemia is not always exclusively primary hyperparathyroidism and rarely could be due to ectopic parathyroid hormone secretion from tumor cells. We present a case of 86-year-old female with metastatic gall bladder adenocarcinoma diagnosed eight months back who presented with generalized fatigue and poor oral intake and was found to be hypercalcemic with elevated parathyroid hormone levels. Imaging with technetium 99 m sestamibi scintigraphy with dual phase, subtraction thyroid scan (dual isotope scintigraphy), magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasonography did not demonstrate any parathyroid lesion in normal or ectopic sites. We believe that the tumor cells were the source of ectopic parathyroid hormone secretion as we had excluded all the other possibilities with extensive combined imaging thereby increasing the sensitivity of our testing. We report the first case of metastatic gall bladder adenocarcinoma with paraneoplastic ectopic parathyroid hormone secretion.