14 DAY TRIAL // A report published in yesterday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine details the case of a man who nearly lost his finger bones to something as simple as a hormonal imbalance.
The doctors who treated this patient explain that, at the time he arrived at the hospital, the 45-year-old's finger bones were smaller than normal and appeared to be further shrinking.
An X-ray taken when the man was admitted to hospital is available below, and arrows indicate the places where the finger bones were thinner than they were supposed to be.
Investigations revealed that the patient had a noncancerous tumor on his parathyroid glands, and specialists were quick to conclude that this formation was causing his finger bones to shrink.
Thus, the tumor was toying with the working agenda of said glands and causing them to release a tad too much parathyroid hormone, the report in the New England Journal of Medicine informs.
Previous studies have shown that this particular hormone is in charge of regulating calcium levels in the human body. Hence, having too much or too little of it is bound to affect bone structure.
“High levels of parathyroid hormone stimulate the bone resorbing cells to resorb bone more quickly, which leads to rapid transfer of more calcium into the blood.”
“At the same time, the hormone signals to the kidneys to lower the calcium excreted from the body in the urine,” specialist Dr. Bart Clarke, who was not involved with this case, tells Live Science.
“Both processes lead to higher blood calcium. In this case, the high blood calcium can't go back into the bones because the increased parathyroid hormone level won't let it,” the endocrinologist goes on to explain.
In order to treat this patient, doctors had to perform surgery and remove the tumor that was sitting on his parathyroid glands and causing them to release increased quantities of parathyroid hormone.
Not long after the tumor was successfully removed, the man's parathyroid hormone levels returned to normal. “After surgical resection, the parathyroid hormone levels quickly returned to normal,” the report reads.
However, the patient developed a condition known as hungry bone syndrome. As explained in the New England Journal of Medicine, this second condition was treated with calcium and vitamin D.
“Severe hungry bone syndrome developed postoperatively in this patient, requiring high doses of oral and intravenous calcium with 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D for approximately 4 months to maintain calcium levels,” doctors explain.
For those unaware, bones in the human body constantly transform. Thus, certain cells chew and cause bone to break down and calcium to be released into the blood. Other cells, on the other hand, make sure that folk's get to keep their skeleton by using calcium to piece together new bone tissue.
