[Surgical management of primary hyperparathyroidism]

We have experienced 186 patients with proven primary hyperparathyroidism operated on during past 16 years. In this series, 147 patients (79%) had adenoma, 24 patients (12.9%) had carcinoma and only 15 (8.1%) had hyperplasia. Because of a 92% of single gland involvement, the removal of an enlarged gland is adequate, if the remaining gland are grossly normal. Besides, interestingly enough, an incidence of parathyroid carcinoma is rather high in Japan, so that surgeons should be alert to recognize the parathyroid carcinoma on the basis of clinical and operative findings. In an effort to minimize recurrence, en bloc resection of the parathyroid carcinoma is important. When a patient with parathyroid carcinoma has a local recurrence or distant metastases, an aggressive surgical approach is recommended to alleviate hypercalcemic symptoms. The majority of patients with hyperplasia belong to multiple endocrine neoplasia, type 1. Recent development of the non-invasive diagnostic methods is remarkable. The last consecutive 31 patients underwent preoperative localization study by 201Thallium (201TI-CI) scanning and ultrasonography. 201TI-CI scanning gave the most accurate results and 100% correct localization was obtained when the parathyroid tumor was more than 1 g. However, it is noteworthy that the parathyroid tumor was less than 1 g in 64% of patients who had no evidence of generalized fibrous osteitis.