10-Minute Scan Enables Detection and Cure of Common Cause of High Blood Pressure - SciTechDaily

Published recently in the journal Nature Medicine, the research solves a 60-year problem of how to detect the hormone-producing nodules without a difficult catheter study that is available in only a handful of hospitals, and often fails.

The scan found that in two-thirds of patients with elevated aldosterone secretion, this is coming from a benign nodule in just one of the adrenal glands, which can then be safely removed.

By contrast, the combination of a ‘hot nodule’ on the scan and urine steroid test detected 18 of the 24 patients who achieved a normal blood pressure off all their drugs.

Previous research by the group at Queen Mary University discovered that in 5-10% of people with Hypertension, the cause is a gene mutation in the adrenal glands, which results in excessive amounts of the steroid hormone, aldosterone, being produced.

Patients with excessive aldosterone levels in the blood are resistant to treatment with the commonly used drugs for Hypertension and are at increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Reference: “[ 11 C]metomidate PET-CT versus adrenal vein sampling for diagnosing surgically curable primary aldosteronism: a prospective, within-patient trial” by Xilin Wu, Russell Senanayake, Emily Goodchild, Waiel A. Bashari, Jackie Salsbury, Claudia P. Cabrera, Giulia Argentesi, Samuel M. O’Toole, Matthew Matson, Brendan Koo, Laila Parvanta, Nick Hilliard, Vasilis Kosmoliaptsis, Alison Marker, Daniel M. Berney, Wilson Tan, Roger Foo, Charles A. Mein, Eva Wozniak, Emmanuel Savage, Anju Sahdev, Nicholas Bird, Kate Laycock, Istvan Boros, Stefan Hader, Victoria Warnes, Daniel Gillett, Anne Dawnay, Elizabeth Adeyeye, Alessandro Prete, Angela E. Taylor, Wiebke Arlt, Anish N. Bhuva, Franklin Aigbirhio, Charlotte Manisty, Alasdair McIntosh, Alexander McConnachie, J. Kennedy Cruickshank, Heok Cheow, Mark Gurnell, William M. Drake and Morris J.