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Clinical Chemistry 16: 792-796, 1970;
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Clinical Chemistry, Vol 16, 792-796, Copyright © 1970 by the American Association for Clinical Chemistry

Estimating Aberrant Homeostasis: Variance in Serum Calcium Concentration as an Aid in Diagnosis of Hyperparathyroidism

George W. Drach 1 and J. Stanton King Jr. 1

1 Research Laboratory, Section on Urology, Department of Surgery, Bowman Gray School of Medicine of Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, N.C. 27103.

Frank hypercalcemia is diagnostic of hyperparathyroidism; borderline values present a diagnostic dilemma. Serum calcium and phosphorus concentrations were measured on three or more days in three groups of subjects: 13 healthy controls, 13 hyperparathyroid patients, and six recurrent oxalate stone-formers with idiopathic hypercalciuria. Variances in the concentration of each ion for all individuals were compared by a rank-order runs test. Only individual variances in serum calcium concentrations of patients with hyperparathyroidism were significantly greater than individual variances in the other two groups. Excessive day-to-day variance in serum calcium seems to reflect autonomy of parathyroid function, and can be used to help detect hyperparathyroidism. A similar approach may be diagnostically useful in other diseases in which homeostatic feedback control is aberrant.


Key Words: hypercalcemia • serum phosphorus variation • parathyroid autonomy • stones in the urinary tract

Submitted on March 16, 1970
Accepted on June 27, 1970






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Copyright © 1970 by the American Association for Clinical Chemistry.