The surgical management of primary hyperparathyroidism: a personal series

Primary hyperparathyroidism includes a spectrum of abnormalities relative to the size and histologic characteristics of the diseased glands. The lack of uniform agreement upon pathological interpretation and discrepancies between gross and histologic findings perpetuate the controversy regarding the mass of parathyroid tissue necessary to be resected. From 1960 to 1978, 193 primary hyperparathyroid patients (aged 20-80 years; mean: 55 years) were operated on by the senior author with a mean follow-up of 41.5 months. An approach evolved that included gross identification of all parathyroid tissue with frozen section confirmation and assessment of cellularity-the latter modifying the extent of parathyroid resection in 11 patients (11%) of 100 patients who had biopsies of at least four parathyroids. Overall persistence and recurrence rates of hypercalcemia were 6.2% (12 patients) and 1% (two patients), respectively, despite routine biopsy in 100 patients. No permanent hypocalcemia developed, but five patients (2.6%) were hypocalcemia one to 16 weeks postoperatively. No operative deaths occurred. Submission of additional parathyroid tissue by routine biopsy disclosed a higher prevalence of nodular hyperplasia than usually found, and the clinical significance of this finding is discussed. With findings based on gross and microscopic intraoperative study, the authors believe, the surgeon is better able to categorize pathologic variants of hyperparathyroidism and better equipped to deal with recurrent disease.