Why carry out this study?

Chronic hypoparathyroidism is a rare endocrine disorder characterized by insufficient parathyroid hormone, hypocalcemia, and hyperphosphatemia.

Studies in small cohorts of patients (≤ 700) with hypoparathyroidism showed that hypocalcemia was associated with poor cardiovascular outcomes, including cardiomyopathy, congestive heart failure, and arrhythmia.

This retrospective cohort study examined risks of development of cardiovascular conditions in 8097 patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism compared with 40,485 patients without hypoparathyroidism.

What was learned from the study?

Patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism had significantly higher risk of incident cardiovascular conditions compared with those without hypoparathyroidism.

Further studies are necessary to understand the underlying mechanisms for the associations between cardiovascular conditions and chronic hypoparathyroidism.