Is random screening of value in detecting glucocorticoid-remediable aldosteronism within a hypertensive population?

Introduction: Glucocorticoid-remediable aldosteronism (GRA) is a rare inher ited cause for hypertension associated with a significant morbidity and mor tality at an early age. Individuals with this abnormality frequently presen t with severe hypertension which is resistant to standard antihypertensive therapy, a strong family history of hypertension, intracranial haemorrhage, and sporadic hypokalaemia. However many affected individuals may appear ph enotypically indistinguishable from normal essential hypertensives but rema in at high risk of morbidity and mortality. objective: To determine how effective random or targeted screening of hyper tensive patients is for the detection of GRA. Design: A prospective study involving the screening of 300 hypertensive pat ients chosen at random attending the Aberdeen Hypertension Clinic and, duri ng the same period, the targeted screening of patients with a medicaland fa mily history suggestive of GRA. Setting: A University hospital with a primary catchment of 500000 inhabitan ts and a hypertension clinic population of over 8500 patients. Results: Random screening failed to identify any GRA mutation-positive indi viduals. Targeted screening of selected individuals revealed two index fami lies and four further families containing 40 mutation-positive individuals. Conclusion: Targeted screening of hypertensive individuals with a family hi story of hypertension, cerebral haemorrhage, a history of hypertension from an early age, resistant hypertension which has proven difficult to control and hypokalaemia revealed two index cases and four further individuals and 30 hypertensive and 10 normotensive members of their families with GRA.