Even though the increasing clinical recognition of primary aldosteronism (PA) as a public health issue, its heightened risk profiles and the availability of targeted surgical/medical treatment being more understood, consensus in its diagnosis and management based on medical evidence, while recognizing the constraints of our real-world clinical practice in Taiwan, has not been reached. The Taiwan Society of Aldosteronism (TSA) Task Force acknowledges the above-mentioned issues and reached this Taiwan PA consensus at its inaugural meeting, in order to provide updated information of internationally acceptable standards, and also to incorporate our local disease characteristics into the management of PA. When there is suspicion of PA, a plasma aldosterone to renin ratio (ARR) should be obtained initially. Patients with abnormal ARR will undergo confirmatory laboratory and image tests. Subtype classification with adrenal venous sampling (AVS) or NP-59 nuclear imaging, if AVS not available, to lateralize PA is recommended when patients are considered for adrenalectomy. The strengths and weaknesses of the currently available identification methods are discussed, focusing especially on result interpretation. With this consensus we hope to raise more awareness of PA among medical professionals and hypertensive patients in Taiwan, and to facilitate reconciliation of better detection, identification and treatment of patients with PA.

The 2 main causes of primary aldosteronism (PA) are aldosterone-producing adenoma (APA) and idiopathic adrenal hyperplasia (IAH). Dexamethasone-suppression ¹³¹I-6β-iodomethyl-19-norcholesterol (NP-59) adrenal scintigraphy can assess the functioning of the adrenal cortex. This study evaluated the diagnostic usefulness of NP-59 SPECT/CT in differentiating APA from IAH and in predicting postadrenalectomy clinical outcome for PA patients who had inconclusive adrenal venous sampling (AVS) and CT results. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the 31 adrenal lesions of 27 patients (age range, 33–71 y; mean age ± SD, 50.4 ± 10.9 y) who had been clinically confirmed (by saline infusion and captopril tests) to have PA, had inconclusive CT and AVS test results, and had undergone NP-59 imaging before adrenalectomy. The accuracy of NP-59 imaging was determined by comparison with histopathologic findings. Results: NP-59 SPECT/CT gave us 18 true-positive, 3 false-positive, 6 true-negative, and 4 false-negative results. Compared with planar imaging, SPECT/CT significantly improved diagnostic accuracy and prognostic predicting ability (P = 0.0390 and P = 0.0141, respectively). The NP-59 results were negative for 7 of the 23 patients with unilateral adrenal lesions, and none of these 7 patients had shown postsurgical clinical improvement. Conclusion: NP-59 SPECT/CT is an effective imaging tool for differentiating APA from IAH in PA patients whose CT and AVS results are inconclusive. Our results suggest that patients with presurgically negative NP-59 results should be treated medically and that noninvasive NP-59 SPECT/CT may be suited for use as the first lateralization modality after CT in patients with clinically confirmed PA.