Suspected Conn's Syndrome in A Female Adult Hypertensive: A Case Report
Keywords:
Conn's syndrome, Cardiac Arrest, Adrenal tumor, Nigerian Female.Abstract
Background: The presentation of adrenal adenoma with ventricular fibrillation and sudden death is rare. Ventricular fibrillation is the most common cause of sudden death. Coronary artery disease, cardiac valvular or myocardial diseases, and non -cardiac abnormalities may also lead to ventricular fibrillation. We present a patient with recurrent ventricular fibrillation and associated adrenal tumour.
Methods: The case records of the index patient and a review of the literature on the subject.
Result: A 39 year old hypertensive woman presented in the accident and emergency department of the University of Port-Harcourt Teaching Hospital with a history of extreme weakness and inability to walk of four day duration. While being evaluated, she had a cardiac arrest and was successfully resuscitated. She had two more episodes of cardiac arrest in the Intensive care unit. Investigations revealed ventricular fibrillation from ventricular tachycardia and severe hypokalaemia with metabolic alkalosis. Abdominal CT scan revealed a right adrenal mass. ACTH level, serum and urinary cortisol levels were normal. A diagnosis of Conn's syndrome was made and patient did well on spironolactone and other anti- hypertensives as she awaits surgery.
Conclusion : There is a need for high index of suspicion for the secondary causes of hypertension while dealing with young patients and whenever there is an unusual presentation. This case highlights the need for proper investigation of patients.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2015 The Nigerian Health Journal
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The Journal is owned, published and copyrighted by the Nigerian Medical Association, River state Branch. The copyright of papers published are vested in the journal and the publisher. In line with our open access policy and the Creative Commons Attribution License policy authors are allowed to share their work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.
The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, and so forth in this publication, even if not specifically identified, does not imply that these names are not protected by the relevant laws and regulations. While the advice and information in this journal are believed to be true and accurate on the date of its going to press, neither the authors, the editors, nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein.
TNHJ also supports open access archiving of articles published in the journal after three months of publication. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g, in institutional repositories or on their website) within the stated period, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access). All requests for permission for open access archiving outside this period should be sent to the editor via email to editor@tnhjph.com.
