Primary aldosteronism - part I: prevalence, screening, and selection of cases for adrenal vein sampling.

Over the last few years compelling evidence has been gathered to support the view that primary aldosteronism (PA) is far more prevalent than usually held: its prevalence rate among consecutive newly diagnosed hypertensive patients referred to hypertension centers can be as high as 11.2%. Moreover, about 4.8% of cases are a surgically curable endocrine form of hypertension, and the majority of cases do not exhibit hypokalemia at the time of clinical presentation. The impact of these results on the strategy to be used in the clinical investigation of patients with hypertension is discussed in light of novel information on the optimal screening strategy to be used for pinpointing the PA patients from the vast array of hypertensive patients.