Endocrine Abstracts

Background: The geographical difference in presentation of primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) is well known however, there is spare literature on influence of age and gender on presentation of PHPT.

Objective: To study the effect of age and gender on clinical and biochemical presentation of PHPT.

Method: This is a retrospective analysis of 184 histopathologically proven PHPT patients between March 1990 and March 2010 from a single centre of North India. PHPT patients were divided in five different age groups, i.e. children <12 years, adolescent 12–18 years, young adult 19–25 years, adult 26–59 years and older ≥60 years. Clinical presentations, biochemical parameters and parathyroid gland weight were compared among different age groups and between genders.

Results: Female:male ratio was 70:30%. 77.2% were between 25 and 59 years while 5.97% were <12 years. There was no change in clinical presentations and biochemical parameters among the different age groups except rickets in children and adolescent (2.2%), and renal stones in 25–59 years adults (41.3%) and markedly elevated alkaline phosphatase in children and adolescent (P<0.01). Bone pain and muscle aches (P<0.01), fracture (P=0.04), renal stone (P=0.05), cholelithiasis (P=0.03) and pancreatitis (P=0.02) were more common among women. Serum calcium and phosphate levels were similar in either sex but parathyroid hormone (PTH) level was higher among women (P=0.02). Parathyroid adenoma weight was higher in older compare to young but did not reach to level of statistical significance.

Conclusion: There was no much difference in the clinical and biochemical presentation of PHPT among different age groups but differences among genders were noticeable.