Background: Commonly used assays for intact parathyroid hormone (iPTH) detect not only the biologically active 84 -amino acid hormone [PTH(1-84)], but crossreact with an N-terminal-truncated fragment. Because iPTH assays often fail to predict success of parathyroidectomy in patients with renal hyperparathyroidism (rHPT), we compared results of a 3rd-generation PTH(1-84) assay (Bio-iPTH; Nichols Institute Diagnostics) with two 2nd-generation iPTH assays (from Nichols and Roche Diagnostics) by evaluating the PTH clearance kinetics during surgical treatment. Methods: We collected blood samples in short time intervals from 35 consecutive surgical patients with rHPT. Three patients had to be excluded from further calculations; the remainder were grouped according to kidney function and postoperative outcome. All samples were analyzed with the 3 automated PTH assays, which have different specificities. Results: Twenty minutes after removal of the last gland, the PTH(1-84) values decreased to within the reference intervals in all patients with total and subtotal resection; however, iPTH concentrations normalized in only one half of these patients. In patients with poor renal function, the half-life of PTH(1-84) was shorter than the half-lives obtained with the iPTH assays. Conclusions: The accuracy of PTH monitoring during surgery for rHPT depends on renal function and assay specificity. All assays tested showed similar effective-