Primary Aldosteronism: Diagnosis and Differentiation of Subtypes

Excerpt

Nearly 30 Years have passed since the initial description of primary aldosteronism, a syndrome caused by the excessive production of mineralocorticoid hormones from an adrenal tumor (1, 2). Hypertension, hypokalemic alkalosis, normal glucocorticoid function, and excessive production of aldosterone were the original features of the syndrome. Elucidation of the marked suppression of renin activity, resulting from the mineralocorticoid-induced increase in extracellular fluid, provided a useful marker for detecting this potentially curable form of hypertension (3). However, subsequent studies of plasma renin activity in hypertension have found that a large population of patients have renin suppression, most of whom do not