Published in “Nature Medicine,” research solves a 60-year problem of how to detect hormone-producing nodules without using the complex catheter-based technique that is only available in a handful of hospitals, often with no results.
The investigation also found that, combined with a urinalysis, the scintigraphy detects a group of patients who discontinued their blood pressure medications after treatment.
A total of 128 people participated in the study of a new scan after doctors discovered that her hypertension (high blood pressure) was caused by a steroid hormone, aldosterone.
The scan found that in two-thirds of the patients with elevated aldosterone secretion, the aldosterone secretion came from a benign nodule in only one of the Kidney glandswhich can be safely removed.
The scintigraphy is so accurate like the old catheter test, but fast, painless and technically satisfactory in all patients. Until now, the catheter test was unable to predict which patients would be completely cured of high blood pressure by surgical removal of the gland. Instead, the combination of a “hot nodule” scan and urine steroid analysis detected 18 out of 24 patients who achieved normal blood pressure without taking any drug.
The combination of a “hot nodule” and urine steroid analysis detected 18 patients who achieved normal blood pressure without taking any drug
“These aldosterone-producing nodules they are very small and easily go unnoticed on a normal CT scan. When they glow for a few minutes after our injection, they reveal themselves as the obvious cause of high blood pressure, which can then often be cured. Until now, 99% were never diagnosed due to the difficulty and lack of availability of tests. Hopefully this is about to change,” says Morris Brown, a researcher at Queen Mary University of London and co-lead author of the study.
In most people with hypertension, the cause is unknown and the disease requires lifelong drug treatment. Previous research by the Queen Mary University group found that in 5-10% of hypertensives the cause is a genetic mutation in the adrenal glands, which causes excessive production of the steroid hormone aldosterone. Aldosterone causes the body to retain salt, which raises blood pressure. Patients with excessive levels of aldosterone in the blood are resistant to treatment with drugs commonly used for hypertension and are at increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.