Comparison of the performance and clinical utility of a carboxy-terminal assay and an intact assay for parathyroid hormone

A comparison of the performance of a two-site immunochemiluminometric assay for intact parathyroid hormone with that of an in-house radioimmunoassay for carboxy terminal parathyroid hormone has been performed on samples from unselected patients being investigated for hypercalcaemia. The intact parathyroid hormone assay was found to be a simple and robust technique with a broad working assay range (CV < 10% between 1.8–212 pmol/l) and a detection limit of 0.2 pmol/l. Clinically it is superior to the carboxy terminal assay in its ability to distinguish between patients with hyperparathyroidism from those with other causes of hypercalcaemia especially in the presence of impaired renal function.