Familial parathyroid hyperplasia: is there a place for minimally invasive surgery? Description of the first treated case

Is minimally invasive parathyroid surgery an option for patients with gestational primary hyperparathyroidism?

Background

Gestational primary hyperparathyroidism is associated with serious maternal and neonatal complications, which require prompt surgical treatment. Minimally invasive parathyroidectomy reduces pain, improves cosmesis and may achieve cure rates comparable to traditional open bilateral neck exploration. We report the clinical course of a woman with newly diagnosed gestational primary hyperparathyroidism and discuss the decision making behind the choice of video-assisted minimally invasive parathyroidectomy, amongst the other minimally invasive parathyroidectomy techniques available.

Case presentation

A 38-years-old pregnant woman at 9 weeks of gestation, with severe hyperemesis and hypercalcaemia secondary to gestational primary hyperparathyroidism (ionised calcium 1.28 mmol/l) was referred for surgery. Ultrasound examination of her neck identified 2 suspicious parathyroid enlargements. In view of pregnancy, a radioisotope Sestamibi parathyroid scan was not performed. Bilateral four-gland exploration was therefore deemed necessary to guarantee cure. This was performed with video-assisted minimally invasive parathyroidectomy, which relies on a single 15 mm central incision with external retraction and endoscopic magnification, allowing bilateral neck exploration.

Surgery was performed at 23 weeks of gestation. Four glands were identified in orthotopic positions of which three had normal appearance. The fourth was a right superior parathyroid adenoma of 756 mg. Ionized calcium (1.12 mmol/l) and PTH (0.9 pmol/l) normalised postoperatively. Patient was discharged on the second postoperative day, needing no pain relief. Cosmetic result was excellent. Her pregnancy progressed normally and she delivered a healthy baby.

Conclusion

Video-assisted minimally invasive parathyroidectomy allows bilateral four-gland exploration, and is an optimal technique to treat gestational primary hyperparathyroidism. This procedure removes the need for radiation exposure, reduces pain, improves cosmesis and may achieve cure rates comparable to traditional open bilateral neck exploration.

Mini-invasive video-assisted surgery of the thyroid and parathyroid glands: a 2011 update

Thyroid surgery during the last century was characterized by a development of Kocher's concepts: through a relentless work of surgeons from all over the world thyroidectomy reached a standard of quality in terms of overall results which was unimaginable in the first half of the XX century. The flattering data collected in the literature until the 90's were all concordant in assuming that there would be little space for a real improvement in the quality standard of thyroid surgery. The introduction of laparoscopic surgery, though, changed very quickly the attitude of surgeons towards their operative behavior and countless new mini-invasive techniques were soon proposed for almost any field of surgery. In 1994, Gagner published the first series of laparoscopic adrenalectomies. Soon after, parathyroid adenomas seemed to offer an ideal field of application of these new surgical concepts. The first report of an endoscopic parathyroidectomy was in 1996. One year later other videoscopic procedures were described whose results seemed quite encouraging so as to push surgeons to try the same access and the same technique also for operations on thyroid. During the following decade several endoscopic or video-assisted approaches were proposed for the removal of thyroid gland. This paper aims to evaluate the results of minimally invasive thyroid and parathyroid surgery through an extensive review of the literature, in particular as far as minimally invasive video-assisted thyroidectomy is concerned.