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Most Frequent Cause of Elevated Blood Pressure is Detectable and Treatable With a CT Scan

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eMediNexus    19 January 2023

According to a study published in Nature Medicine, researchers at Cambridge University Hospital, Barts Hospital, and the Queen Mary University of London have used a novel form of CT scan to reveal minute nodules in a hormone gland and treat high blood pressure by surgically removing them.

 

The study explained a 60-year-old solution to the issue of how to identify hormone-producing nodules without doing a challenging catheter study that is only offered in a small number of hospitals. The study also discovered that the scan can identify a subset of individuals who stop taking all of their blood pressure medications following therapy in conjunction with a urine test.

 

In the study, physicians recruited 128 patients after discovering that the steroid hormone aldosterone was to blame for their hypertension (high blood pressure). According to the scan, one of the adrenal glands contains a benign nodule that may be safely removed in two-thirds of individuals with increased aldosterone secretion. A very small amount of metomidate, a radioactive dye that exclusively adheres to the aldosterone-producing nodule, was used during the scan.

 

The scan was just as precise as the previous catheter test, but it was also found to be faster, painless, and technically successful in every patient. Up until now, catheter tests were unable to identify which individuals would experience a full recovery from hypertension following surgical removal of the gland. By contrast, the combination of a "hot nodule" on the scan and the urine steroid test detected 18 of the 24 patients who achieved normal blood pressure off all their drugs. 

 

(Source: https://theprint.in/health/ct-scan-enables-detection-and-cure-of-the-commonest-cause-of-high-blood-pressure/1321427/ )

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