Patients’ views about parathyroid transplantation for post-thyroidectomy hypoparathyroidism

Permanent hypoparathyroidism (hypoPT) represents the most common postoperative complication associated with total thyroidectomy. Current treatment relies on high-dose calcium and/or vitamin D supplementation, but often this is insufficient and some patients remain symptomatic. Parathyroid allotransplantation is a new therapeutic option described recently in the literature. This study aims to investigate the patients’ acceptability of parathyroid transplantation as a potential new treatment for hypoPT.

Responses were received from 252 hypoPT patients. Majority declared to experience severe symptoms despite regular medical treatment. On a severity scale of 0–5, symptoms that were most troublesome were fatigue (3.8), low sense of well-being (3.5), and numbness/tingling (2.9). On a scale of 0–10, on average, their current quality of life (QoL) was 5 ± 3 and they expected this would improve to 7 ± 2 with correction of their hypoPT. Forty-four percent of patients were extremely interested in a potential technique involving intramuscular injection of parathyroid cell suspension compared to just 14% who were interested in the more invasive procedure of implantation of a parathyroid allograft into the forearm. The main concerns expressed were related to the possible need for immunosuppressive therapy.

Patients with severe symptomatic hypoPT seem interested to consider participation in a clinical trial exploring the feasibility and success rate of parathyroid transplantation.