Introduction to Postsurgical Hypoparathyroidism

The trend towards increasingly unilateral surgery in thyroid carcinoma, as confirmed by our results in case of lobectomy, is expected to really contribute to a further reduction of postsurgical hypoparathyroidism.

The presented clinical cases describe the changes of both hyper- and hypocalcemia within one day in patients with chronic postsurgical hypoparathyroidism managed by standard therapy.

Four patients with postsurgical hypoparathyroidism and one patient with autoimmune hypoparathyroidism, all of them with suboptimal control under the standard treatment with calcium and calcitriol supplements or calcium gluconate infusion, are presented.

Background Permanent postsurgical hypoparathyroidism (POSH) is a major complication of anterior neck surgery in general and of thyroid surgery in particular.

The risk of postsurgical hypoparathyroidism is lower when thyroidectomy is performed by high-volume experienced surgeons.

Seventy percent (91/130) of patients had postsurgical hypoparathyroidism, 30% (39/130) of patients had nonsurgical hypoparathyroidism due to autoimmune, genetic or idiopathic causes, and a molecular diagnosis was confirmed in 11 of these 39 patients.

PATIENTS 20 patients with postsurgical hypoparathyroidism (12 females) and 20 age- and sex-matched controls.

In conclusion, postsurgical hypoparathyroidism is the dominant etiology of hypoparathyroidism in Turkey while the nonsurgical patients have a higher disease burden with greater need for medications and increased risk of complications than the postsurgical patients.

In our clinical experience, need for doses of active vitamin D and calcium supplements changes during the period following a diagnosis of postsurgical hypoparathyroidism (HypoPT), but only sparse data are available.

Case Report: A 31-year-old woman was referred to our department for further evaluation of chronic severe hypocalcemia due to iatrogenic postsurgical hypoparathyroidism.

Postsurgical hypoparathyroidism (hPTpost) was defined at PTH levels ≤11 pg/mL.

CONCLUSION We demonstrate for the first time that in postmenopausal women with chronic postsurgical hypoparathyroidism, VFs are demonstrable by VFA despite normal BMD.

Objective This case highlights use of 1-34 PTH continuous infusion in a patient with postsurgical hypoparathyroidism.