The removal of aldosterone excess in APA patients induces the regression of both cardiac and gluco-metabolic complications, indicating aldosterone as a main determinant of such alterations. In IHA patients the medical treatment seems to avoid the possible progression of the these alterations that appear to be stable.

Our data reinforce the superiority of a standardized upright ARR as a screening test in the diagnosis of primary aldosteronism, identifying 40 as an ideal cut-off value. Saline infusion represents a useful test to confirm such a diagnosis, with a serum aldosterone level of 7 ng/dl as a satisfactory cut-off value. Some more information is obtained when the aldosterone/cortisol ratio is considered.

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Primary aldosteronism (PA) causes cardiovascular damage in excess to the blood pressure elevation, but there are no prospective studies proving a worse long-term prognosis in adrenalectomized and medically treated patients. We have, therefore, assessed the outcome of PA patients according to treatment mode in the PAPY study (Primary Aldosteronism Prevalence in Hypertension) patients, 88.8% of whom were optimally treated patients with primary (essential) hypertension (PH), and the rest had PA and were assigned to medical therapy (6.4%) or adrenalectomy (4.8%). Total mortality was the primary end point; secondary end points were cardiovascular death, major adverse cardiovascular events, including atrial fibrillation, and total cardiovascular events. Kaplan-Meier and Cox analysis were used to compare survival between PA and its subtypes and PH patients. After a median of 11.8 years, complete follow-up data were obtained in 89% of the 1125 patients in the original cohort. Only a trend (=0.07) toward a worse death-free survival in PA than in PH patients was observed. However, at both univariate (90.0% versus 97.8%; =0.002) and multivariate analyses (hazard ratio, 1.82; 95% confidence interval, 1.08-3.08;=0.025), medically treated PA patients showed a lower atrial fibrillation-free survival than PH patients. By showing that during a long-term follow-up adrenalectomized aldosterone-producing adenoma patients have a similar long-term outcome of optimally treated PH patients, whereas, at variance, medically treated PA patients remain at a higher risk of atrial fibrillation, this large prospective study emphasizes the importance of an early identification of PA patients who need adrenalectomy as a key measure to prevent incident atrial fibrillation.

P rimary aldosteronism (PA) is the most common form of secondary hypertension, with a prevalence of 5% to 15% among hypertensive patients and is characterized by the autonomous hypersecretion of aldosterone. Sporadic PA and 3 familial forms (familial hyperaldosteronism types I, II, and III) have been described.1 Sporadic PA accounts for >90% of all cases and is caused by either an aldosterone-producing adenoma (APA), which can be surgically removed, or bilateral adrenal hyperplasia, which is treatable with mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists.Somatic APA mutations in the KCNJ5 gene, which encodes the G-protein-activated inward rectifier K + channel 4, GIRK4 (also called the inward rectifier K + channel, Kir3.4), were first identified by Choi et al. 2 Subsequently, Boulkroun et al 3 determined a 34% prevalence of KCNJ5 mutations in a large European cohort of 380 APA. Intriguingly, the KCNJ5 mutations were markedly more prevalent in women, 3 and this predominance was confirmed by successive studies. 4,5 To date, 5 different KCNJ5 mutations causing sporadic PA have been identified, the majority of which are Abstract-Aldosterone-producing adenomas (APAs) cause a sporadic form of primary aldosteronism and somatic mutations in the KCNJ5 gene, which encodes the G-protein-activated inward rectifier K + channel 4, GIRK4, account for ≈40% of APAs. Additional somatic APA mutations were identified recently in 2 other genes, ATP1A1 and ATP2B3, encoding Na + /K + -ATPase 1 and Ca 2+ -ATPase 3, respectively, at a combined prevalence of 6.8%. We have screened 112 APAs for mutations in known hotspots for genetic alterations associated with primary aldosteronism. Somatic mutations in ATP1A1, ATP2B3, and KCNJ5 were present in 6.3%, 0.9%, and 39.3% of APAs, respectively, and included 2 novel mutations (Na

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Context: Adrenal vein sampling (AVS) is the only reliable means to distinguish between aldosterone-producing adenoma and bilateral adrenal hyperplasia, the two most common subtypes of primary aldosteronism (PA). AVS protocols are not standardized and vary widely between centers.Objective: The objective of the study was to retrospectively investigate whether the presence of contralateral adrenal (CL) suppression of aldosterone secretion was associated with improved postoperative outcomes in patients who underwent unilateral adrenalectomy for PA. Setting:The study was carried out in eight different referral centers in Italy, Germany, and Japan.Patients: From 585 consecutive AVS in patients with confirmed PA, 234 procedures met the inclusion criteria and were used for the subsequent analyses.Results: Overall, 82% of patients displayed contralateral suppression. This percentage was significantly higher in ACTH stimulated compared with basal procedures (90% vs 77%). The CL ratio was inversely correlated with the aldosterone level at diagnosis and, among AVS parameters, with the lateralization index (P ϭ .02 and P ϭ .01, respectively). The absence of contralateral suppression was not associated with a lower rate of response to adrenalectomy in terms of both clinical and biochemical parameters, and patients with CL suppression underwent a significantly larger reduction in the aldosterone levels after adrenalectomy. Conclusions:For patients with lateralizing indices of greater than 4 (which comprised the great majority of subjects in this study), CL suppression should not be required to refer patients to adrenalectomy because it is not associated with a larger blood pressure reduction after surgery and might exclude patients from curative surgery. (J Clin Endocrinol Metab 99: 4158 -4166, 2014) P rimary aldosteronism (PA), the most common form of secondary hypertension, is a heterogeneous group of disorders characterized by autonomous aldosterone secretion and concomitant suppression of the renin-angiotensin system. Bilateral adrenal hyperplasia (BAH) and aldosteroneproducing adenoma (APA) together account for more than 90% of all PA cases, whereas rarer PA subtypes are unilateral adrenal hyperplasia, aldosterone-producing adrenal carcinoma, and the familial forms (1).

Our results support previous data showing secondary hyperparathyroidism in PA patients, which is reversible after treatment. Moreover, this targeted treatment appears to be able to determine a significant improvement of BMD both at the spine and hip sites.