-
- N J Downey, J A McGuigan, S J Dolan, and C F Russell.
- Department of Endocrine Surgery, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
- Ir J Med Sci. 1999 Jan 1; 168 (1): 131613-6.
AbstractMost mediastinal parathyroid tumours lie within the thymus gland and may be retrieved when cervical thymectomy is carried out in the course of neck exploration for primary hyperparathyroidism (HPT). We report 4 patients, each of whom required sternotomy for removal of a true mediastinal parathyroid adenoma. Subtraction isotope scintigraphy suggested the presence of a mediastinal tumour prior to cervical exploration in 2 individuals and prior to re-exploration in a third. When localisation before initial exploration for HPT suggests a parathyroid tumour within the chest, consideration should be given to proceeding to sternotomy, at first operation if a comprehensive neck exploration, including cervical thymectomy, fails to uncover the adenoma. Uniquely, one of our patients underwent sternotomy for HPT when 23 weeks pregnant.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*,_underline_or**bold**. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>and subscript<sub>text</sub>. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3., hyphens-or asterisks*. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com) - Images can be included with:
 - For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote..