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Hyperparathyroidism The Missing Diagnosis By laura freeMan
When you studied endocrine disorders in medical school, did you get the impression that primary hyperthyroidism was a rare disease you were unlikely to see often—maybe only one or two cases per hundred patients? Endocrine surgeons have a different message for healthcare providers. There may be more people than we realize who suffer for months or even years without knowing what is really behind their symptoms. Why? No one thought to run two simple labs to detect one of the few devastating diseases that can be completely cured with an outpatient procedure.
“After seeing so many cases, I’m convinced we have a lot more people walking around with hyperparathyroidism than we once suspected. It has so many symptoms that mimic other diseases that unless the right two labs are run and the relationship between their values noticed, the symptoms are likely to look like something else,” UAB endocrine surgeon Jessica Fazendin, MD said. It’s frustrating for both physicians and patients when prescriptions fails to help. It can undermine the doctor/patient relationship and sow the seeds of doubt. Not recognizing hyperparathyroidism can also send a whole series of dominos falling, undermining a previously stable condition because problems are attributed to the wrong disease. For example, when a patient’s labs suggest possible Fazendin performing endocrine surgery.
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PEDIATRICS SECTION
Children’s Cleft and Craniofacial Team Gains National Recognition
By Jane ehrhardt
Cassi Smola, MD with a young patient.
“There are kids we meet when they’re sometimes prenatal,” says René P. Myers, MD, a craniofacial and pediatric surgeon. He serves as a plastic surgeon on Children’s of Alabama’s specialized team of providers who treat patients with cleft lip, cleft palate, and other craniofacial disorders. Recently, the team became one of only 200 approved teams in the U.S. and Canada recognized for meeting the Standards of Team Care for Cleft and Craniofacial Teams, awarded by the American Cleft Palate Craniofacial Association (ACPA). “We are excited about this,” says Cassi Smola, MD, the team’s pediatrician. “We were awarded this because we have all of the team members required and enough of the experience, research, and national expertise to meet their approval.”
The Children’s of Alabama cleft palate team.
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www.birminghammedicalnews.com
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