[Significant manifestations and diagnostic difficulties in chronic secondary hypoparathyroidism]

A man became ill with insufficiency of parathyroid glands 10 years after strumectomy. Numerous brain organic changes were apparent (severe epileptic seizures, tonic seizures of the brain stem, pathological EEG, PEG and liquor symptoms, papilledema, marked mental disturbances ranging in severity up to episodic psychoses), but even at the climax of the illness there were no definite signs of tetanic seizures, so that the basic illness remained unidentified for several months. Chronic secondary hypoparathyroidism was not definitely identified until ectodermal changes appeared, the characteristic changes of the lens contributing greatly to final diagnosis.