for a Task Force of the Association of Bioethics Program Directors* Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has or threatens to overwhelm health care systems. Many institutions are developing ventilator triage policies.

We found the self-reported QOL of thyroid cancer survivors in our study population is overall similar to or worse than that of survivors of other types of cancer surveyed with the same instrument. This should heighten awareness of the significance of a thyroid cancer diagnosis and highlights the need for further research in how to improve care for this enlarging group of patients.

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The biochemical profile of classic primary hyperparathyroidism (pHPT) consists of both elevated calcium and parathyroid hormone levels. The standard of care is parathyroidectomy unless prohibited by medical comorbidities. Because more patients are undergoing routine bone density evaluation and neck imaging studies for other purposes, there is a subset of people identified with a biochemically mild form of the pHPT that expresses itself as either elevated calcium or parathyroid hormone levels. These patients often do not fall into the criteria for operation based on the National Institutes of Health consensus guidelines, and they can present a challenge of diagnosis and management. The purpose of this paper is to review the available literature on mild pHPT in an effort to better characterize this patient population and to determine whether patients benefit from parathyroidectomy. Evidence suggests that there are patients with mild pHPTwho have overt symptoms that are found to improve after parathyroidectomy. There is also a group of patients with biochemically mild pHPT who are found to progress to classic pHPT over time; however, it is not predictable which group of patients this will be. Early intervention for this group with mild pHPT may prevent progression of bone, psychiatric, and renal complications, and parathyroidectomy has proven safe in appropriately selected patients at high volume centers. The Oncologist 2014;19:919-929 Implications for Practice: Mild primary hyperparathyroidism (pHPT) is a disease that is being diagnosed with increased frequency; however, recommendations for treatment are not uniform. Current NIH guidelines do not recommend parathyroidectomy for these patients if they are asymptomatic; however, upon focused questioning, many of these patients are found to have subtle symptoms.The biochemically mild nature of the disease has been found to delay diagnosis and treatment, but after it is identified, surgery has shown to provide an improvement in quality of life and bone health. Although the current body of literature suggests that patients with mild pHPT benefit from parathyroidectomy, careful patient and surgeon selection is critical to ensuring safety and efficacy. Universal acceptance of parathyroidectomy in this subset of patients will require more high quality, prospective studies and improved definitions of long-term cure.

Our findings indicate that malignancy, lymph node dissection, and metastatic nodal disease are risk factors for IP. Patients with IP were more likely to have postoperative biochemical and symptomatic hypocalcemia than controls, showing that there is a physiologic consequence to IP. Additionally, intraoperative surgeon identification of parathyroid glands results in a lower incidence of IP, highlighting the importance of awareness of parathyroid anatomy during thyroid surgery.

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