Data Relating to the Diagnosis of Parathyroid Overactivity in the Heredity of the Family

Hereditary hyperparathyroidism, occurring as an isolated endocrinopathy was first described by Goldman and Smyth in 1936. They described primary hyperparathyroidism in two siblings. Jackson and Boonstra (1967) collected 21 families with 107 hyperparathyroid members from the literature, including eight unrelated families of their own, all discovered in a single centre over a 10-year period. This condition tends to occur in younger patients who frequently have symptomless hypercalcaemia; the more likely parathyroid pathology is either chief-cell hyperplasia or multiple and re-