[Results of the surgical treatment of Conn's adenomas]

During the last 10 years we operated on 69 Conn's adenomas of which 59 were followed up for a mean period of 16 months (range: 3-96 months). Surgery cured the hypertension (blood pressure less than 140/90) in 47 p. 100 of the patients. Improved blood pressure (systolic: mean = 46 mmHg; range 0-135 mmHg and diastolic: mean = 25 mmHg; range 0-66 mmHg) was noted in another 47 p. 100 of patients whereas no blood pressure change was noted in 3 patients. Biological primary aldosteronism was found post-operatively in 2 of these 3 patients and also in one whose hypertension was improved. In this last patient plus the three unimproved by surgery, small tumours (less than 10 mm) were found and co-existnt multifocal hyperplasia was found in the 2 patients who had had an adrenalectomy. Fifty-one patients were treated pre-operatively by spironolactone (SP) alone (3.2 +/- 1.3 mg/kg) for a mean period of 6.8 weeks (range: 3 to 20 weeks). Only 2 of the 24 patients controlled by SP were not cured by surgery and one of them had persistnt primary aldosteronism. Conversely, 3 of the 27 uncontrolled by SP were cured post-operatively, and these exceptions could be due to the weak dose of SP (n = 2) and an observance problem (n = 1). Patients cured by surgery had shorter duration of hypertension (4.3 +/- 3.0 years vs 10.1 +/- 8.1; p less than 0.01) and lower diastolic pressure (111 +/- 14 mmHg vs 121 +/- 12; p less than 0.01) than uncured patients. No significant difference between these two groups was observed with respect to systolic pressure, age, sex, plasma potassium, plasma renin activity and plasma aldosterone levels.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)