An unusual cause of hypercalcemic crisis: Water-clear cell double parathyroid adenoma

To evaluate the clinical characteristics of a patient operated for water-clear cell adenoma and to discuss these in the light of relevant literature.

PubMed and Google Scholar were searched to identify articles related to water-clear cell adenoma using the following keywords: parathyroid tissue, parathyroid gland, parathyroid cells, parathyroid adenoma, parathyroid hyperplasia, water-clear-cell, and water clear cell. The search included case reports, review articles, and original articles that had been published between January 1990 and November 2014 without any restrictions on language. All articles that contained information on the study population and treatment related data were identified and retrieved. In addition, an evaluation was of a case of a 47-year-old male patient with PHC who was treated at our clinic was conducted.

A total of 19 patients, including our new case, (age range: 18 to 81 years, mean±SD: 57.47±16.31 years) were included in the analysis. Eleven patients were female. Information about adenoma location was available from studies involving 17 patients and they indicated the following distribution of locations: left inferior (n=10), right superior (n=4). When preoperative imaging methods were examined, a false negative result was given by ultrasonography in 28.5% of patients and only 57.1% were positive on scintigraphy. Concomitant thyroid papillary carcinoma was determined in 1 patient. The mean tissue dimensions were 3.47±1.73 cm (range, 0.8-6.8 cm).

Water-clear cell adenoma, which shows similar clinical characteristics to other parathyroid adenomas, is an uncommon cause of hyperparathyroidism.