Surgery improves quality of life in patients with “mild” hyperparathyroidism
Received 2 May 2008; received in revised form 1 September 2008
Abstract
Background
Surgical treatment of patients with “classic” hyperparathyroidism improves quality of life, but these benefits to patients with “mild” disease remain unclear.
Methods
The SF-36 Health Survey was administered to 174 patients 1 week before, 1 week after, and 1 year after undergoing parathyroidectomy.
Results
One hundred fifty-one patients completed at least 2 surveys. There were 18 and 133 cases of “mild” and “classic” hyperparathyroidism, respectively. Preoperatively, the groups did not differ significantly in the 10 scales. One year after surgery, patients with “classic” and “mild” disease improved significantly in 9/10 and 10/10 scales, respectively (P < 0.05). Those with “mild” disease had a statistically larger improvement than those with “classic” disease in 4 scales.
Conclusions
Quality of life significantly improved in surgically treated patients with both “mild” and “classic” hyperparathyroidism, supporting surgical treatment of “mild” hyperparathyroidism. Moreover, quality of life may improve more in patients with “mild” rather than “classic” disease.
J.T. Adler is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Training Fellow and is supported by the University of Wisconsin General Clinical Research Center.
ABSTRACT