It depends on who did the operation

If you had surgery at the Norman Parathyroid Center (not everybody who uses this app has surgery with us) then there is almost zero chance you will get another parathyroid tumor later in life. We learned long ago that the only way to provide a “durable” cure of hyperparathyroidism that lasts people for decades (or the rest of their life!) is to examine and test all four parathyroid glands. So that is our routine operation–we check the other glands to see what they are up to.

Almost no other surgeons check all four glands

Finding all four parathyroid glands is extremely difficult and takes at least 2,000 parathyroid operations to be able to do it routinely. Problem is, nobody in the world (except us) does more than 100 parathyroid operations per year. Most Endocrine Surgeons that call themselves experts only do between 20 and 50 operations a year. And, they only try to find the bad gland, they don’t even try to find the other glands. That’s why 15% of our patients have had a failed operation somewhere else before they get here. The vast majority of surgeons don’t even try to find the other glands!  We think this is cheating the patients and these patients are at a much higher rate of having another parathyroid tumor (either immediately or later).

For our patients: Near zero chance to get another parathyroid tumor

We’ve performed well over 33,000 parathyroid operations and it is very rare for our patients to come back with another tumor even 20 years later. The reality is that it is extremely rare for any person to get parathyroid disease twice — IF YOUR SURGEON CHECKS ALL FOUR GLANDS DURING YOUR OPERATION.  If he/she does not, then AT LEAST 15-20% of you will need a second surgery within 20 years.  At least 10% of you will need a second surgery within 5 years.

Bottom line:

If you are our patient, it is very unlikely you will ever need our services again. We will miss you!  But if you do need us again, we are here for you!