Part of “CHAPTER 58 – PRIMARY HYPERPARATHYROIDISM“

The widespread clinical use of the multichannel screening test coincided with a dramatic increase in the incidence of primary hyperparathyroidism.1,2 Before routine determinations of serum calcium were initiated in the early 1970s, primary hyperparathyroidism was an infrequent diagnosis; in the 1990s, it was diagnosed in as many as 1 person of every 1000 members of the general population. The dramatic four- to five-fold increase in apparent incidence that occurred within 10 years of introduction of the multichannel screening test has returned to a relatively stable rate. The incidence of the disease (i.e., recognized cases) now closely approximates the prevalence (i.e., disease detected and undetected) in the population. One study, as yet unconfirmed, suggests a declining incidence of primary hyperparathyroidism.3