Non-surgical therapy of primary aldosteronism: transcatheter arterial infusion of ethanol into an aldosteronoma

Primary aldosteronism due to an adrenocortical adenoma can be cured by abla tion of the adenoma, which produces an excess of aldosterone (aldosteronoma ). This has traditionally been performed by surgical removal of the adenoma . However, some patients with aldosteronomas refuse surgical removal. There fore, we developed a therapeutic method to ablate an aldosteronoma by trans catheter arterial infusion of ethanol. This method ablated the aldosteronom a in 27 (82%) of 33 treated cases and produced no serious complications, an d may be one of the therapeutic choices for aldosteronomas. (C) 2000 Editio ns scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.