Adrenal Adenoma and Hypertension

A Study in the Japanese in Hawaii

Abstract

The autopsies performed at the Kuakini Hospital during a 10-year period (1957-1967) on patients of Japanese ancestry in Hawaii were re-viewed to determine the frequency of hypertension and adrenocortical ad-enomas.
There was a total of 948 autopsied patients of Japanese ancestry of which 313 (33%) were hypertensive with a higher frequency in females (37.6%) than in males (31.6%). There were 51 (5.4%) cases with adenomas and 44 (4.6%) with hyperplasia in the entire group. But of these, 48 (15.3%) cases with adenomas and 40 (12.8%) with hyperplasias were in the hypertensive group, with an increasing incidence with age.
Perhaps, as Conn has postulated, a number of these patients with adrenal adenomas in the hypertensive group in this study, may have had primary aldosteronism. Moreover, the possibility that some of the patients with nodular hyperplasia having had primary aldosteronism cannot be dis-carded.