Differences between atypical parathyroid tumors and parathyroid adenomas in patients with primary hyperparathyroidism

Abstract

Atypical parathyroid tumor is a rare disease that can be challenging to distinguish from parathyroid adenoma. Atypical parathyroid tumor shows some laboratory and histopathological features with parathyroid cancer. This study attempts to compare clinical, laboratory, radiologic, and histopathological characteristics in atypical parathyroid tumor and parathyroid adenoma. This was a retrospective study based on the database of eighty-two subjects who underwent surgery for primary hyperparathyroidism at a tertiary referral center between 2010 and 2021. Forty-one patients with atypical parathyroid tumor were matched by age and gender to controls with parathyroid adenoma. Clinical, laboratory, radiologic, and characteristics were obtained from the hospital database. Forty-five (54.8%) of primary hyperparathyroidism patients were symptomatic, 36 (90%) had nephrolithiasis, 6 (15%) had fracture, and 3 (7.5%) had hypercalcemic crisis. Atypical parathyroid tumor patients present with significantly increased serum calcium, parathormone, and alkaline phosphatase levels (P < .001, all). No significant difference was observed in the results of bone mineral density, T-scores, and Z-scores. The size of adenoma was significantly greater in the atypical parathyroid tumor group (24 (8.8-70) mm vs. 12 (3.8-32) mm, P = 0.005). Our study revealed that increased preoperative serum calcium, parathormone, alkaline phosphatase concentrations, and parathyroid adenoma size on ultrasound may have predicted the atypical parathyroid tumor.