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      A disease-specific Quality of Life questionnaire for primary aldosteronism

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          Abstract

          Objective

          To develop a primary aldosteronism (PA) disease-specific Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) questionnaire.

          Methods

          We included newly diagnosed patients with PA ( n = 26), and patients with PA after adrenalectomy ( n = 25) or treated with mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists ( n = 25). According to the guidelines for developing HRQoL questionnaires from the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC): Phase I: systematic literature review followed by focus group meetings with patients ( n = 13) resulting in a list of 94 HRQoL issues. Relevance of issues was rated by 18 other patients and by health care professionals ( n = 15), resulting in 30 remaining issues. Phase II: selected issues were converted into questions. Phase III: the provisional questionnaire was pre-tested by a third group of patients ( n = 45) who also completed the EORTC core Quality of Life questionnaire (QLQ-C30). Psychometric testing resulted in a final selection of questions with their scale structure.

          Results

          After the collection and selection of HRQoL issues a provisional questionnaire consisting of 30 items was formed. Of these items, 26 could be assigned to one of the four scales ‘physical and mental fatigue’, ‘anxiety and stress’, ‘fluid balance’ and ‘other complaints’ cumulatively accounting for 68% of variation in all items. All scales had good reliability and validity. There was a significant correlation of all four scales with the QLQ-C30 in most cases.

          Conclusions

          We developed the first PA-specific HRQoL questionnaire (PA-QoL) using standard, methodologically proven guidelines. After completion of the final validation (phase IV, international field testing), the questionnaire can be implemented into clinical practice.

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          Most cited references21

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          The Management of Primary Aldosteronism: Case Detection, Diagnosis, and Treatment: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline.

          To develop clinical practice guidelines for the management of patients with primary aldosteronism.
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            Case detection, diagnosis, and treatment of patients with primary aldosteronism: an endocrine society clinical practice guideline.

            Our objective was to develop clinical practice guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of patients with primary aldosteronism. The Task Force comprised a chair, selected by the Clinical Guidelines Subcommittee (CGS) of The Endocrine Society, six additional experts, one methodologist, and a medical writer. The Task Force received no corporate funding or remuneration. Systematic reviews of available evidence were used to formulate the key treatment and prevention recommendations. We used the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) group criteria to describe both the quality of evidence and the strength of recommendations. We used "recommend" for strong recommendations and "suggest" for weak recommendations. Consensus was guided by systematic reviews of evidence and discussions during one group meeting, several conference calls, and multiple e-mail communications. The drafts prepared by the task force with the help of a medical writer were reviewed successively by The Endocrine Society's CGS, Clinical Affairs Core Committee (CACC), and Council. The version approved by the CGS and CACC was placed on The Endocrine Society's Web site for comments by members. At each stage of review, the Task Force received written comments and incorporated needed changes. We recommend case detection of primary aldosteronism be sought in higher risk groups of hypertensive patients and those with hypokalemia by determining the aldosterone-renin ratio under standard conditions and that the condition be confirmed/excluded by one of four commonly used confirmatory tests. We recommend that all patients with primary aldosteronism undergo adrenal computed tomography as the initial study in subtype testing and to exclude adrenocortical carcinoma. We recommend the presence of a unilateral form of primary aldosteronism should be established/excluded by bilateral adrenal venous sampling by an experienced radiologist and, where present, optimally treated by laparoscopic adrenalectomy. We recommend that patients with bilateral adrenal hyperplasia, or those unsuitable for surgery, optimally be treated medically by mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists.
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              Increased diagnosis of primary aldosteronism, including surgically correctable forms, in centers from five continents.

              Primary aldosteronism (PA) is a common form of endocrine hypertension previously believed to account for less than 1% of hypertensive patients. Hypokalemia was considered a prerequisite for pursuing diagnostic tests for PA. Recent studies applying the plasma aldosterone/plasma renin activity ratio (ARR) as a screening test have reported a higher prevalence. This study is a retrospective evaluation of the diagnosis of PA from clinical centers in five continents before and after the widespread use of the ARR as a screening test. The application of this strategy to a greater number of hypertensives led to a 5- to 15-fold increase in the identification of patients affected by PA. Only a small proportion of patients (between 9 and 37%) were hypokalemic. The annual detection rate of aldosterone-producing adenoma (APA) increased in all centers (by 1.3-6.3 times) after the wide application of ARR. Aldosterone-producing adenomas constituted a much higher proportion of patients with PA in the four centers that employed adrenal venous sampling (28-50%) than in the center that did not (9%). In conclusion, the wide use of the ARR as a screening test in hypertensive patients led to a marked increase in the detection rate of PA.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Endocr Connect
                Endocr Connect
                EC
                Endocrine Connections
                Bioscientifica Ltd (Bristol )
                2049-3614
                April 2019
                13 March 2019
                : 8
                : 4
                : 389-397
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Internal Medicine , Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
                [2 ]Department of Internal Medicine III , University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus at the Technical University Dresden, Dresden, Germany
                [3 ]Division of Clinical Studies , Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK
                Author notes
                Correspondence should be addressed to M S Velema: marieke.velema@ 123456radboudumc.nl
                Article
                EC-19-0026
                10.1530/EC-19-0026
                6454297
                30865926
                e9988af3-76ec-4c6d-a07e-1577f76f0f43
                © 2019 The authors

                This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

                History
                : 10 March 2019
                : 13 March 2019
                Categories
                Research

                hyperaldosteronism,quality of life,patient health questionnaire,development

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