Vol.100 No.5 contentsPRACTICA OTO-RHINO-LARYNGOLOGICA
Vol. 100 No. 5 May 2007
Four Case Reports of Parathyroid Cyst
Ryo Ota
(Asahikawa Kosei Hospital, Asahikawa Medical College)
Satoshi Nonaka, Akihiro Katada, Tatsuya Hayashi and Yasuaki Harabuchi
(Asahikawa Medical College)
Naoki Hatayama
(Asahikawa Kosei Hospital)
Parathyroid cyst is a comparatively rare disease, and it is difficult to differentiate from thyroid cyst preoperatively. Therefore, most patients with parathyroid cyst are definitively diagnosed after surgery. We report four cases of parathyroid cyst. None of these cases was diagnosed as parathyroid cyst preoperatively. Parathyroid cyst is classified into two groups depending on whether the patient demonstrates hyperparathyroidism or not, i.e. functional and nonfunctional. All of our cases were classified as nonfunctional.
It is difficult to distinguish between parathyroid cyst and thyroid cyst by clinical and radiological findings. It has been reported that analysis of cyst contents obtained from puncture under ultrasonography can be a useful technique to diagnose parathyroid cyst correctly. We also suggest a new way to treat the parathyroid cyst less invasively, by puncture and ethanol injection.
Key words : parathyroid cyst, functional cyst, nonfunctional cyst, preoperative diagnosis