Effects of sodium intake on the captopril test for primary aldosteronism

The validity of the captopril test for primary aldosteronism (PA) was tested in patients with surgically verified PA (n = 12) or essential hypertension (EHT, n = 20) with different levels of sodium intakes. The patients were scheduled on 7 days each of three regimes of the prepared diet containing 34, 120 and 340 mEq of sodium chloride per day, and the captopril test was repeated in each period. For the test, captopril (50 mg) was administered orally at 9:00 A.M. after 1 hour of rest in a supine position, and venous blood samples were obtained before and 90 min after drug administration. Plasma aldosterone concentration (PAC; ng/dl) and plasma renin activity (PRA; ng/ml/h) were measured by radioimmunoassay. Under the three different sodium intakes, a PAC/PRA ratio greater than 20 at 90 min after captopril administration was sufficiently sensitive (0.95, 19/20) and specific (0.92, 55/60) to identify PA. Similarly, PA was associated with a PAC above 15 ng/dl 90 min after captopril. There were no complaints associated with the antihypertensive effects of the drug even when patients were sodium-restricted. These results confirmed that the captopril test is safe and useful for screening out-patients for PA, independent of individual differences in sodium intake.