Parathyroid Hormone Test May Be Used During Surgery

The test provides quantitative results on the amount of parathyroid hormone in human serum and plasma to diagnose hypercalcemia and hypocalcemia, which helps physicians diagnose parathyroid dysfunction.

Developed by Roche Diagnostics (Indianapolis, IN, USA), the nine-minute PTH test is performed on Roche's Elecsys 1010 and 2010 systems and cobas e 411 analyzer. It has received clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use during parathyroid surgery. This will provide faster results for surgeons, which should result in shorter surgeries for patients.

Surgeons use the test to establish a PTH baseline on patients with parathyroid adenoma that can cause their parathyroids to malfunction. The test will now be used during surgery at different intervals after the gland is removed to determine whether all the adenoma has been removed and the gland is back to normal function.

Dr. Herbert Chen, chief of endocrine surgery for the University of Wisconsin (Madison, WI, USA), determined that intraoperative parathyroid hormone measurement improves cure rates in patients undergoing minimally invasive parathyroidectomies because it allows surgeons to recognize and address additional hyperfunctioning parathyroids during surgery that were missed by preoperative imaging.

Dr. Gerard Doherty, an endocrine surgeon at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI, USA), estimates the test will help him cut at least five to eight minutes off the length of a typical surgery, and much more time from the surgeries of the patients with more than one impacted gland and the surgeries of the slow degrader patients whose PTH levels fall slower after their adenoma is removed.

This test can help patients, surgeons and hospital administrators, said Andy Thomson, senior vice president of Centralized Diagnostics, Roche Diagnostics. The reduced test time--in most cases less than half the time of competing tests--means surgeons spend less time waiting for test results, allowing them to get their patients out of the operating room faster.


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Roche Diagnostics
University of Wisconsin
University of Michigan