Patients with primary hyperparathyroidism operated on over a 24-year period: temporal trends of clinical and laboratory findings.

Temporal trends of clinical and laboratory data of 441 patients operated upon for primary hyperparathyroidism (HPT) during 1956-1979 were analysed retrospectively. There was a marked increase in the number of operations for HPT during that time period, from 32 during 1956-1964 to 326 in 1970-1979. In parallel there was a decrease in the proportion of patients with classical manifestations of HPT such as renal stones or bone disease, the latter being on the whole rarely seen in this population. The increased number of operations was instead largely attributable to the more frequent diagnosis of HPT in patients with vague psychiatric or neuromuscular symptoms or with no clinical manifestations; the majority of these persons were older women, the proportion of operations in women 45 years of age or older, increasing from 56% during 1956-64 to 71% during 1970-79. The increased number of operations for HPT during the last decades should be mainly the consequence of a greater awareness of the disease.