Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. The work cannot be changed in any way or used commercially without permission from the journal. To evaluate the efficacy and the feasibility of radiofrequency ablation to treat aldosterone-producing adenomas. Few complications were recorded: four cases of back pain at day 1 postablation; three limited pneumothoraxes, which resolved spontaneously; one lesion of a polar renal artery.
Radiofrequency ablation for hypertensive patients with aldosterone-producing adenomas seems to be an emerging promising alternative to surgery. Its efficacy and its feasibility have to be confirmed in a larger sample of patients. Keywords: adrenal adenoma, hypertension, primary aldosteronism, radiofrequency ablation. Primary aldosteronism is characterized by hypertension, frequent hypokalemia, and an inappropriately high aldosterone-to-renin ratio ARR [ 1 , 2 ].
Aldosterone-producing adenoma APA or Conn syndrome is one of the main causes of primary aldosteronism [ 3 ]. Laparoscopic total-adrenalectomy is an option to normalize or at least improve blood pressure BP control, hypokalemia, and normalize the ARR [ 4 , 5 ]. An efficient but less invasive alternative technique could be the use of radiofrequency ablation RFA.
RFA is widely used to treat solid neoplasms, especially in patients not only with primary or secondary malignancies of the liver, the lung, the kidney, and the breast but also for primary and metastatic adrenal neoplasms, including adrenocortical carcinomas [ 9 β 15 ]. More recently, RFA has been used for patients with primary aldosteronism and unilateral adenoma [ 16 β 25 ]. These studies focused on hormonal resolution of primary aldosteronism, computed tomography CT aspects, and safety data after RFA but the putative positive impact on BP control was not clearly depicted [ 16 β 25 ].
The aim of this study is, therefore, to assess whether RFA improves ambulatory BP control in patients with hypertension because of primary aldosteronism and unilateral adrenal adenoma. Normal potassium, ARR values and safety of the procedure are the secondary outcomes. Between November and October , we enrolled patients from two French Hypertension Excellence Centers Toulouse and Bordeaux who were 18 years old or older, had hypertension confirmed with ambulatory blood pressure monitoring ABPM , and primary aldosteronism demonstrated by hormonal assays and unilateral APA.
