Journal of the Endocrine Society Journal Article

Oral Sodium Loading Test Is More Sensitive Than Seated Saline Infusion Test to Confirm Overt Primary Aldosteronism

April 08, 2025
 

Laurence Duquet, Laura Lefebvre, Samuel Lemaire-Paquette, Mandy Malick, Pierre-Luc Mallet, Matthieu St-Jean
Journal of the Endocrine Society, Volume 9, Issue 3, March 2025, bvae209
https://doi.org/10.1210/jendso/bvae209

Abstract

Context

Primary aldosteronism (PA), a frequent but underdiagnosed cause of hypertension, is associated with a significant burden of cardiovascular and renal complications. Studies have reported divergent results regarding the diagnostic performance of seated saline infusion test (SSIT) and oral sodium loading test (OSLT), 2 confirmatory tests recommended by the Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guidelines. To our knowledge, no study directly compared the results of SSIT and OSLT to diagnose overt PA.

Objective

We assessed the diagnostic performance of SSIT and OSLT in a group of patients with hypertension and elevated screening aldosterone-renin ratio (ARR). The diagnostic standard was defined as hypertension with or without hypokalemia with an elevated screening ARR and at least 1 abnormal confirmation test including OSLT and SSIT.

Methods

A monocentric retrospective study was conducted, including 87 patients with hypertension with a positive screening who underwent both SSIT and OSLT. A diagnostic performance analysis was conducted using urinary aldosterone at a threshold of 27 nmol/day as the criterion for OSLT, in comparison to a plasma aldosterone concentration (PAC) exceeding 140 pmol/L following the saline infusion.

Results

A statistically significant difference in sensitivity was observed between OSLT and SSIT, with OSLT demonstrating superior performance (P = .025). The aforementioned test exhibited concordance in 59 cases (65.5%), indicating that these methods are not equivalent (McNemar test P = .036).

Conclusion

OSLT demonstrated a significantly higher sensitivity for diagnosing overt PA in comparison with the SSIT in our cohort of patients with hypertension with an abnormal screening ARR.

Read the article

 

You may also like...

Publishing Benefits

Author Resource Center

We provide our journal authors with a variety of resources for increasing the discoverability and citation of their published work. Use these tools and tips to broaden the impact of your article.
Publishing Benefits

Author Resource Center

We provide our journal authors with a variety of resources for increasing the discoverability and citation of their published work. Use these tools and tips to broaden the impact of your article.

Thematic Issue

Latest Thematic Issue

immuno-endocrinology
Read our special collections of Endocrine Society journal articles, curated by topic, Altmetric Attention Scores, and Featured Article designations.

Read our special collections of Endocrine Society journal articles, curated by topic, Altmetric Attention Scores, and Featured Article designations.

Back to top

Who We Are

For 100 years, the Endocrine Society has been at the forefront of hormone science and public health. Read about our history and how we continue to serve the endocrine community.