Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Dec 26, 2019; 7(24): 4321-4326
Published online Dec 26, 2019. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v7.i24.4321
Huge brown tumor of the rib in an unlocatable hyperparathyroidism patient with “self-recovered” serum calcium and parathyroid hormone: A case report
Wen-Da Wang, Ning Zhang, Qiang Qu, Xiao-Dong He
Wen-Da Wang, Department of Surgery, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China
Ning Zhang, Qiang Qu, Xiao-Dong He, Department of General Surgery, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China
Author contributions: He XD, Zhang N and Wang WD performed the operation; Wang WD collected the case data and drafted the article; He XD and Qu Q made critical revisions to the manuscript.
Informed consent statement: Consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this report and any accompanying images.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: CARE Checklist (2016) statement has been uploaded.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Xiao-Dong He, MD, Doctor, Professor, Department of General Surgery, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Shuaifuyuan 1, Beijing 100730, China. hexiaodong@pumch.cn
Telephone: +86-10-69152613 Fax: +86-10-69152613
Received: August 17, 2019
Peer-review started: August 17, 2019
First decision: September 23, 2019
Revised: October 17, 2019
Accepted: November 15, 2019
Article in press: November 15, 2019
Published online: December 26, 2019
Processing time: 130 Days and 6.3 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: This is a very interesting case of unlocatable hyperparathyroidism (HPT). The patient presented a huge mass on her left chest wall. However, the serum Ca and parathyroid hormone levels were both normal pre- and post-operation, and the diagnosis was difficult to make. The mass was thought to be likely caused by HPT, but a malignancy could not be ruled out. Finally, the pathology proved that the mass was a brown tumor. Since the patient experienced serum calcium and parathyroid hormone “self-recovery”, she did not receive exploratory surgery for HPT, and received regular follow-up.