SUMMARYThe autopsies performed at the Kuakini Hospital during a 10-year period (1957)(1958)(1959)(1960)(1961)(1962)(1963)(1964)(1965)(1966)(1967) on patients of Japanese ancestry in Hawaii were reviewed to determine the frequency of hypertension and adrenocortical adenomas.There was a total of 948 autopsied patients of Japanese ancestry of which 313 (33%) were hypertensive with a higher frequency in females (37.6%) than in males (31.6%). There were 51 (5.4%) cases with adenomas and 44 (4.6%) with hyperplasia in the entire group. But of these, 48 (15.3%) cases with adenomas and 40 (12.8%) with hyperplasias were in the hypertensive group, with an increasing incidence with age. Perhaps, as Conn has postulated, a number of these patients with adrenal adenomas in the hypertensive group in this study, may have had primary aldosteronism. Moreover, the possibility that some of the patients with nodular hyperplasia having had primary aldosteronism cannot be discarded.
Additional Indexing Words: AldosteronismAdrenal hyperplasia INCE the description of primary aldosteronism as a cause of hypertension by Conn in 1955,1) there has been a reemphasis of the relationship of the adrenal cortex to essential hypertension. Many patients with essential hypertension have increased aldosterone excretion2) and about one-fifth have been observed to have small adrenal adenomas.3) Hypertension is reported to be more common in certain districts in Japan than in the United States and a relationship between salt consumption and hypertension has been suggested to explain the difference.4)-6) This study was undertaken to determine the relative frequency of hypertension among patients of Japanese ancestry who have subsequently come to autopsy, and to determine the frequency of adrenocortical adenoma in the necropsy population.
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