[ACTH therapy for infantile spasms with chronic renal failure]

A one-year-old female patient with infantile spasms who suffered from chronic renal failure was treated with ACTH for the control of frequent tonic spasms. She received 0.005 mg/kg of ACTH for 7 days and then 0.01 mg/kg for 12 days daily. From 12 days after initiation of the treatment, tonic spasms and hypsarrythmia observed on electroencephalography disappeared. During the ACTH treatment, hypertension and gastric bleeding developed, and persisted even with antihypertensive drugs and a H2-blocker treatments. During the ACTH therapy, the serum cortisol level was higher than that in control subjects. Recent advances regarding the metabolism of cortisol have shown that the inactivation of cortisol is impaired in patients with chronic renal failure and that clearance of cortisol from serum is decreased in such patients. It is suggested that the same mechanism was involved in the present patient during the ACTH therapy and that adverse effects of ACTH were related to the high cortisol level in the serum. We conclude that the dose and duration of ACTH therapy should be determined by careful monitoring for the adverse effects of ACTH, and that the serum cortisol level might be a predictor of the side effects of ACTH therapy in a patient with chronic renal failure.