In April, the Society issued a Clinical Practice Guideline calling on physicians to ramp up screening for primary aldosteronism, a common cause of high blood pressure.
The guideline, entitled “The Management of Primary Aldosteronism: Case Detection, Diagnosis, and Treatment: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline,” was published online and appeared in the May 2016 print issue of The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). The guideline updates recommendations from the Society’s 2008 guideline.
Primary aldosteronism occurs when the adrenal glands – the small glands located on the top of each kidney – produce too much of the hormone aldosterone. This causes aldosterone, which helps balance levels of sodium and potassium, to build up in the body. The resulting excess sodium can lead to a rise in blood pressure.
“In the past eight years, we have come to recognize that primary aldosteronism, despite being quite common, frequently goes undiagnosed and untreated,” says John W. Funder, MD, PhD, of the Hudson Institute of Medical Research in Clayton, Australia, and chair of the task force that authored the guideline. “This is a major public health issue. Many people with primary aldosteronism are never screened due to the associated costs. Better screening processes are needed to ensure no person suffering from primary aldosteronism and the resulting risks of uncontrolled high blood pressure goes untreated.”
Other members of the Endocrine Society task force that developed this guideline include: Robert M. Carey, University of Virginia Health System, Charlottesville, Va.; Franco Mantero, University of Padova, Padua, Italy; M. Hassan Murad, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.; Martin Reincke, Klinikum of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, München, Bavaria, Germany; Hirotaka Shibata, Oita University, Oita, Japan; Michael Stowasser, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia; and William F. Young, Jr., Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
The Clinical Practice Guideline was co-sponsored by the American Heart Association, the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons, the European Society of Endocrinology, the European Society of Hypertension, the International Association of Endocrine Surgeons, the International Society of Hypertension, the Japan Endocrine Society, and The Japanese Society of Hypertension.
The guideline is available online.
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