CASE REPORT article
Front. Endocrinol.
Sec. Bone Research
This article is part of the Research TopicSecondary Causes of Bone FragilityView all 3 articles
An undescended intravagal parathyroid adenoma: A rare cause of refractory primary hyperparathyroidism and severe osteoporosis
Provisionally accepted
- College of Medicine, King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia
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Ectopic intravagal parathyroid adenomas represent an exceedingly rare clinical entity. Embryologically, parathyroid glands develop from the third and fourth pharyngeal pouches, migrating to their definitive locations on the inferior and superior aspects of the thyroid. While ectopic locations are well described, intravagal variants are rare, with few documented cases in the literature. We report an additional unique case of a patient with persistent hypercalcemia and severe osteoporosis following a failed bilateral neck exploration for primary hyperparathyroidism. Following multimodal structural and functional radiological evaluation, an ectopically undescended parathyroid adenoma was identified and subsequently confirmed intraoperatively to be situated intravagal.
Keywords: ectopic, intravagal, Parathyroid adenoma, primary hyperparathyroidism, Vagus Nerve
Received: 07 Jan 2026; Accepted: 02 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Alzahrani. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hassan A. Alzahrani
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