Present status of primary hyperparathyroidism

: The availability of accurate and inexpensive methods for measuring serum calcium levels has resulted in a rapid increase in the number of diagnoses of primary hyperparathyroidism, notably in its asymptomatic hypercalcemic forms. In addition, the development of a radioimmunoassay of the parathyroid hormone and, more recently, measurements of nephrogenous cyclic AMP during fasting and after calcium loading have led to the recognition of clinical variants of the disease, such as intermittent or borderline hypercalcemia and pure hypercalciuria with normal calcemia. The degree of hypercalcemia in stable primary hyperparathyroidism depends on renal tubular reabsorption of calcium rather than on bone resorption. The poor correlation observed between calcium tubular reabsorption rate and magnitude of parathyroid hormone hypersecretion suggests that as yet undetermined factors interfere with the effects of parathyroid hormone on renal tubules and probably account for the fluctuations in calcemia reported during serial determinations in patients. The sigmoid relationship between parathyroid hormone release and extracellular calcium concentrations has been analyzed from recent in vitro studies with dispersed parathyroid cells. In primary hyperplasia of the parathyroid glands hypersecretion of parathyroid hormone seems to depend principally upon the increase in tissue mass with normal sensitivity to calcium at cellular levels, whereas in adenoma the primary abnormality responsible for hypersecretion of parathyroid hormone would be an alteration in cell sensitivity to calcium, as indicated by an elevated "set point". Finally, while complicated primary hyperthyroidism requires surgery, our limited knowledge of the natural history of asymptomatic forms makes it impossible to decide which of these patients will ultimately need to be operated upon.