Does fludrocortisone treatment cause hypomagnesemia in children with primary adrenal insufficiency?

Aldosterone is a mineralocorticoid that secreted from adrenal glands and a known factor to increase magnesium excretion by direct and indirect effects on renal tubular cells. Although the frequency of hypomagnesemia was found to be approximately 5% in adult studies, there is no study in the literature investigating the frequency of hypomagnesemia in children by using fludrocortisone, which has a mineralocorticoid activity.

A multi-center retrospective study was conducted, including children who were under fludrocortisone treatment for primary adrenal insufficiency and applied to participant pediatric endocrinology outpatient clinics.

Forty-three patients (58.1% male, 41.9% prepubertal) included in the study, whose median age was 9.18 (0.61-19) years, and the most common diagnosis among the patients was a salt-wasting form of congenital adrenal hyperplasia (67.4%). Mean serum magnesium level was 2.05 (±0.13) mg/dL, and hypomagnesemia was not observed in any of the patients treated with fludrocortisone. None of the patients had increased urinary excretion of magnesium.

Unlike the studies performed in adults, we could not find any evidence of magnesium wasting effect of fludrocortisone treatment with normal or even high doses in children and adolescents.