Abstract

We describe a boy who presented at 4 years of age with radiological hyperparathyroidism, osteosclerosis, and necrosis of the femoral heads. Plasma biochemistry was normal but the parathyroid hormone (PTH) level was very high. He was deaf and had an unusual facies but did not have the phenotype of Albright's hereditary osteodystrophy. Plasma and urine cyclic AMP reponses to bovine PTH were markedly subnormal. Vitamin D produced sustained hypercalcaemia and a fall in plasma phosphorus. After four hyperplastic parathyroid glands were removed he became hypocalcaemic and plasma phosphorus rose. After operation he remained unresponsive to exogenous PTH; We suggest that he had a form of pseudohypoparathyroidism without the phenotype of Albright's hereditary osteodystrophy and with some residual skeletal and renal responsiveness to PTH.