Primary Aldosteronism and Surgically Curable Forms in Hypertension Patients Using 11C-Metomidate

10% of patients with hypertension potentially have the treatable condition - primary aldosteronism. Primary aldosteronism (PA) is caused by either bilateral adrenal disease (40%), managed with lifelong medications; or unilateral disease (60%), cured with laparoscopic surgery (adrenalectomy). Unfortunately, many patients with curable hypertension remain undiagnosed and consequently develop cardiac disease and strokes. The difficulty with identifying curable unilateral disease is due to adrenal vein sampling (AVS): an invasive, and technically-difficult procedure, with inconclusive results in 50% of patients. An alternative novel imaging, 11C-metomidate Positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT), can detect adrenal tumors, and concurrently confirm their over-activity. It is non-invasive, non-operator-dependent, and can identify more patients with curable hypertension.

Investigators hypothesize that 11C-metomidate PET-CT can accurately identify patients with surgically-curable unilateral adrenal disease among hypertensive Asians with primary aldosteronism.