[Urinary excretion of hydroxyproline in parathyroid disorders, with special reference to its changes before and after...

It is possible to assess bone resorption from a determination of urinary excretion of hydroxyproline, which is the specific amino-acid of collagen. As dietary collagen affects 24-hour urinary excretion of hydroxyproline, it has been stated that the urine should be collected under a gelatin-free diet. A new sampling method was described in the present paper for the determination of hydroxyproline in urine, which could eliminate the affection of dietary collagen by simple fasting. The method was useful for the evaluation of bone metabolism in patients with parathyroid disorders. 10 patients with primary hyperparathyroidism (3 skeletal types and 7 non-skeletal types), 3 patients with idiopathic hypoparathyroidism and 5 normal subjects were studied. It was found that the urinary excretion of hydroxyproline increased at night and diminished during the day in patients with primary hyperparathyroidism as well as in normal subjects, but this diurnal rhythm was not clear in a patient with idiopathic hypoparathyroidism. A pilot study revealed that 10 g gelatin administered orally did not affect the urinary excretion of hydroxyproline after a 12-hour fast. Therefore, 2-hour urine samples (700 h-900 h) were collected, and blood samples were drawn at 800 h after a 13-hour fasting from 1800 h on the previous day to 700 h in the morning studied. The urinary excretion of hydroxyproline was expressed as follows: HOP (microgram/ml)/Cr(mg/dl). The 2-hour urinary excretion of hydroxyproline thus determined was highly correlated with that determined in 24-hour urine collected under a gelatin-free diet (r = 0.995, p less than 0.001) and with the total serum alkaline phosphatase activity (r = 0.987, p less than 0.001). The levels of 2-hour urinary excretion of hydroxyproline in normal subjects were 0.18-0.28 in range, and those in patients with the skeletal type of primary hyperparathyroidism were high. However, the levels were not always higher than those in the patients with the non-skeletal type, in which cases the 2-hour excretion of hydroxyproline was higher than 0.50 except in one patient. The 9 patients with primary hyperparathyroidism who had elevated levels of the 2-hour urinary excretion of hydroxyproline showed tetany after parathyroidectomy.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)