Abstract

Background: During pregnancy, there is no established treatment for idiopathic hyperaldosteronism (IHA), the most common form of primary aldosteronism (PA) due to bilateral adrenal hyperplasia. Here, we report the case of a pregnant patient with IHA who was successfully treated with esaxerenone, a non-steroidal mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) antagonist. Case: A 39-year-old woman was referred to our outpatient clinic for hypertension with high plasma aldosterone concentration (PAC). Her PAC was 204 pg/mL (radioimmunoassay) and plasma renin activity was 1.2 ng/mL/h at the time of referral. She was diagnosed with PA since the saline-loading test for PA was positive. She had no hypokalemia and computed tomography scans showed no adrenal tumors. Adrenal vein sampling indicated overproduction of aldosterone in both adrenal glands leading to the diagnosis of IHA. She was commenced on nifedipine controlled release (CR) 20 mg daily because she desired to be pregnant. After one year, she became pregnant. Her blood pressure was well controlled until 34 weeks of gestation when her home blood pressure became elevated up to 140/90 mmHg. Although the dose of nifedipine CR was increased to 80 mg daily, her blood pressure increased to 151/97 mmHg and urinary test showed proteinuria of 2 + in 35 weeks of gestation. She was diagnosed with superimposed preeclampsia (SPE) and additionally treated with esaxerenone. Her blood pressure decreased to 120–140/98–100 mmHg and the proteinuria improved to +/-. A successful cesarean section at 37 weeks resulted in the delivery of a healthy baby boy. Esaxerenone was discontinued 2 weeks after delivery, because she was eager to breast-feed the baby and no safety data of esaxerenone in breast-feeding woman was available. Her blood pressure has been well controlled by nifedipine CR 80 mg daily even after 100 days of postpartum. Conclusions: This is the first case of a pregnant woman who was successfully treated with esaxerenone despite being an elderly pregnant woman who had been diagnosed with IHA and developed SPE. Further studies are needed to investigate the efficacy and safety of non-steroidal selective MR antagonist in similar pregnant patients with IHA, to establish better treatment strategy for these patients.

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