Primary aldosteronism (PA) is the most frequent cause of secondary hypertension and is associated with a higher cardiometabolic risk than essential hypertension. The aim of this consensus is to provide practical clinical recommendations for its surgical and medical treatment, pathology study and biochemical and clinical follow-up, as well as for the approach in special situations like advanced age, pregnancy and chronic kidney disease, from a multidisciplinary perspective, in a nominal group consensus approach of experts from the Spanish Society of Endocrinology and Nutrition (SEEN), Spanish Society of Cardiology (SEC), Spanish Society of Nephrology (SEN), Spanish Society of Internal Medicine (SEMI), Spanish Radiology Society (SERAM), Spanish Society of Vascular and Interventional Radiology (SERVEI), Spanish Society of Laboratory Medicine (SEQC(ML)), Spanish Society of Anatomic-Pathology and Spanish Association of Surgeons (AEC).

Primary aldosteronism (PA) is the most frequent cause of secondary hypertension (HT), and is associated with a higher cardiometabolic risk than essential HT. However, PA remains underdiagnosed, probably due to several difficulties clinicians usually find in performing its diagnosis and subtype classification. The aim of this consensus is to provide practical recommendations focused on the prevalence and the diagnosis of PA and the clinical implications of aldosterone excess, from a multidisciplinary perspective, in a nominal group consensus approach by experts from the Spanish Society of Endocrinology and Nutrition (SEEN), Spanish Society of Cardiology (SEC), Spanish Society of Nephrology (SEN), Spanish Society of Internal Medicine (SEMI), Spanish Radiology Society (SERAM), Spanish Society of Vascular and Interventional Radiology (SERVEI), Spanish Society of Laboratory Medicine (SEQC(ML)), Spanish Society of Anatomic-Pathology, Spanish Association of Surgeons (AEC).

Primary aldosteronism (PA) is a common, yet underdiagnosed cause of secondary hypertension. It is characterized by an overproduction of aldosterone, leading to hypertension and/or hypokalemia. Despite affecting between 5.9% and 34% of patients with hypertension, PA is frequently missed due to a lack of clinical awareness and systematic screening, which can result in significant cardiovascular complications. To address this, medical societies have developed clinical practice guidelines to improve the management of hypertension and PA. The Korean Endocrine Society, drawing on a wealth of research, has formulated new guidelines for PA. A task force has been established to prepare PA guidelines, which encompass epidemiology, pathophysiology, clinical presentation, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up care. The Korean clinical guidelines for PA aim to deliver an evidence-based protocol for PA diagnosis, treatment, and patient monitoring. These guidelines are anticipated to ease the burden of this potentially curable condition.

Primary aldosteronism (PA) is the most common cause of secondary hypertension and one of the few medical diseases that can be cured by surgery. Excessive aldosterone secretion is highly associated with cardiovascular complications. Many studies have shown that patients with unilateral PA treated with surgery have better survival, cardiovascular, clinical, and biochemical outcomes than those who receive medical treatment. Consequently, laparoscopic adrenalectomy is the gold standard for treating unilateral PA. Surgical methods should be individualized according to the patient\'s tumor size, body shape, surgical history, wound considerations, and surgeon\'s experience. Surgery can be performed through a transperitoneal or retroperitoneal approach, and via a single-port or multi-port laparoscopic approach. However, total or partial adrenalectomy remains controversial in treating unilateral PA. Partial excision will not completely eradicate the disease and is prone to recurrence. Mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists should be considered for patients with bilateral PA or patients who cannot undergo surgery. There are also emerging alternative interventions, including radiofrequency ablation and transarterial adrenal ablation, for which data on long-term outcomes are currently lacking. The Task Force of Taiwan Society of Aldosteronism developed these clinical practice guidelines with the aim of providing medical professionals with more updated information on the treatment of PA and improving the quality of care.

Primary aldosteronism (PA) is associated with higher cardiovascular morbidity and mortality rates than essential hypertension. The Japan Endocrine Society (JES) has developed an updated guideline for PA, based on the evidence, especially from Japan. We should preferentially screen hypertensive patients with a high prevalence of PA with aldosterone to renin ratio ≥200 and plasma aldosterone concentrations (PAC) ≥60 pg/mL as a cut-off of positive results. While we should confirm excess aldosterone secretion by one positive confirmatory test, we could bypass patients with typical PA findings. Since PAC became lower due to a change in assay methods from radioimmunoassay to chemiluminescent enzyme immunoassay, borderline ranges were set for screening and confirmatory tests and provisionally designated as positive. We recommend individualized medicine for those in the borderline range for the next step. We recommend evaluating cortisol co-secretion in patients with adrenal macroadenomas. Although we recommend adrenal venous sampling for lateralization before adrenalectomy, we should carefully select patients rather than all patients, and we suggest bypassing in young patients with typical PA findings. A selectivity index ≥5 and a lateralization index >4 after adrenocorticotropic hormone stimulation defines successful catheterization and unilateral subtype diagnosis. We recommend adrenalectomy for unilateral PA and mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists for bilateral PA. Systematic as well as individualized clinical practice is always warranted. This JES guideline 2021 provides updated rational evidence and recommendations for the clinical practice of PA, leading to improved quality of the clinical practice of hypertension.

UNASSIGNED: Considering the amount of novel knowledge generated in the last five years, a team of experienced hypertensionlogists was assembled to furnish updated clinical practice guidelines for the management of primary aldosteronism.
UNASSIGNED: To identify the most relevant studies, the authors utilized a systematic literature review in international databases by applying the PICO strategy, and then they were required to make use of only those meeting predefined quality criteria. For studies of diagnostic tests, only those that fulfilled the Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy recommendations were considered.
UNASSIGNED: Each section was jointly prepared by at least two co-authors, who provided Class of Recommendation and Level of Evidence following the American Heart Association methodology. The guidelines were sponsored by the Italian Society of Arterial Hypertension and underwent two rounds of revision, eventually reexamined by an External Committee. They were presented and thoroughly discussed in two face-to-face meetings with all co-authors and then presented on occasion of the 36th Italian Society of Arterial Hypertension meeting in order to gather further feedbacks by all members. The text amended according to these feedbacks was subjected to a further peer review.
UNASSIGNED: After this process, substantial updated information was generated, which could simplify the diagnosis of primary aldosteronism and assist practicing physicians in optimizing treatment and follow-up of patients with one of the most common curable causes of arterial hypertension.

Develop a consensus for the nomenclature and definition of adrenal histopathologic features in unilateral primary aldosteronism (PA).
Unilateral PA is the most common surgically treated form of hypertension. Morphologic examination combined with CYP11B2 (aldosterone synthase) immunostaining reveals diverse histopathologic features of lesions in the resected adrenals.
Surgically removed adrenals (n = 37) from 90 patients operated from 2015 to 2018 in Munich, Germany, were selected to represent the broad histologic spectrum of unilateral PA. Five pathologists (Group 1 from Germany, Italy, and Japan) evaluated the histopathology of hematoxylin-eosin (HE) and CYP11B2 immunostained sections, and a consensus was established to define the identifiable features. The consensus was subsequently used by 6 additional pathologists (Group 2 from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, United Kingdom, United States) for the assessment of all adrenals with disagreement for histopathologic diagnoses among group 1 pathologists.
Consensus was achieved to define histopathologic features associated with PA. Use of CYP11B2 immunostaining resulted in a change of the original HE morphology-driven diagnosis in 5 (14%) of 37 cases. Using the consensus criteria, group 2 pathologists agreed for the evaluation of 11 of the 12 cases of disagreement among group 1 pathologists.
The HISTALDO (histopathology of primary aldosteronism) consensus is useful to standardize nomenclature and achieve consistency among pathologists for the histopathologic diagnosis of unilateral PA. CYP11B2 immunohistochemistry should be incorporated into the routine clinical diagnostic workup to localize the likely source of aldosterone production.

Background: Several guidelines and expert consensuses have been developed for management of primary aldosteronism (PA). It is important to understand the detailed recommendations and quality of these guidelines to help physicians make informed and reliable decision. Methods: PubMed, EMBASE, and three websites were searched for practice guidelines or consensuses of PA from inception to January 24, 2019. We summarized the major recommendations on the management of PA from these guidelines and consensuses. The Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation II was used to assess quality of the included guidelines and consensuses. Results: We identified three clinical practice guidelines and three consensus statements. Most of the recommendations on the diagnosis and treatment of PA from these guidelines and consensuses were consistent. Some minor conflicts were recorded for patient\'s screen and confirmation test. All included guideline documents have a good quality (score, >70%) on the scope and purpose (mean score, 81.02%) and clarity of presentation of the recommendations (mean score, 86.88%). However, the reporting for the stakeholder involvement (mean score, 54.32%) and applicability (mean score, 47.92%) were insufficient. There was an insufficient rigorousness in most of the guideline documents (mean score, 45.56%) on the development process. The Endocrine Society practice guideline 2016 ranked highest in quality (score, 81.13%). Conclusions: Existing guideline documents provided valuable recommendations on the management of PA, but further efforts are needed to improve the methodological quality. The Endocrine Society practice guideline 2016 was recommended for use.

The US and Japanese Endocrine Societies recently both developed a therapeutic guideline for primary aldosteronism (PA). These guidelines indicate that differential diagnosis between PA caused by aldosterone-producing adenoma (APA) and bilateral adrenal hyperplasia (or idiopathic hyperaldosteronism [IHA]) is important and critical for treatment choice, while they show some inconsistency due to different frequencies of disorders and medical circumstances in respective countries. Japanese Endocrine Society guidelines have a unique description on the adrenal vein sampling (AVS) against microAPA, detection of which is difficult with current imaging tools and thus is frequently misdiagnosed as IHA. We reported that AVS performed in combination with adrenocorticotropic hormone stimulation was useful for diagnosing laterality of PA lesions, and APA underlay 74% of our cases with significant reduction of IHA compared with those previously reported. Laterality of PA should be precisely evaluated with AVS and imaging studies, as the results strongly influence the choice of therapeutic strategies.

OBJECTIVE: Even with the increasing recognition of primary aldosteronism (PA) as a cause of refractory hypertension and an issue of public health, the consensus of its optimal surgical or medical treatment in Taiwan has not been reached. Our objective was to develop a clinical practice guideline that is feasible for real-world management of PA patients in Taiwan.
METHODS: The Taiwan Society of Aldosteronism (TSA) Task Force recognized 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 and constraints into PA management.
RESULTS: In patients with lateralized PA, including aldosterone producing adenoma (APA), laparoscopic adrenalectomy is the \'gold standard\' of treatment. Mini-laparoscopic and laparoendoscopic single-site approaches are feasible only in highly experienced surgeons. Patients with bilateral adrenal hyperplasia or those not suitable for surgery should be treated by mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists. The outcome data of PA patient management from the literature, especially from PA patients in Taiwan, are reviewed. Mental health screening is helpful in early detection and management of psychopathology among PA patients.
CONCLUSIONS: We hope this consensus will provide a guideline to help medical professionals to manage PA patients in Taiwan to achieve a better quality of care.