Primary aldosteronism prevalent in papillary thyroid cancer patients with hypertension

Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) in individuals with arterial hypertension is independently associated with a diagnosis of primary aldosteronism (PA), reports a study.

The authors examined PA in 137 patients with PTC and hypertension, who were matched with 127 controls by age, sex, and BMI. They performed a secondary analysis in which control participants were matched according to hypertension stage.

PA prevalence was 29.20 percent (95 percent confidence interval [CI], 21.91‒37.68) in the PTC group and 20.44 percent (95 percent CI, 14.22_28.35) in the control group not matched by hypertension stage (p=0.093). PA prevalence did not differ between groups, but controls showed a higher frequency of severe hypertension (stage III or resistant) than the PTC group (73 percent vs 23 percent; p<0.001).

After matching the controls by hypertension stage, PA prevalence was found to be significantly higher in the PTC group than the control group (9.56 percent, 95 percent CI, 5.39‒16.1; p<0.0001).

Multivariate analysis revealed the independent association of PTC with PA both in unmatched hypertensive individuals (odds ratio [OR], 4.74, 95 percent CI, 2.26‒10.55; p<0.001) and in those matched by hypertension stage (OR, 5.88, 95 percent CI, 2.79‒13.37; p<0.001).

“Therefore, we propose the association between PTC and HT as a new recommendation for PA screening regardless of hypertension severity,” the authors said.