Sub-study of the effect of spironolactone on MTO PET-CT results
DISEASE
One disadvantage of AVS is the need for patients to come off interfering medications before MTO PET-CT investigation. Our hypothesis was that spironolactone therapy at the time of MTO would not prevent the detection of unilateral disease. A sub-study was designed in which six patients underwent MTO scanning on two separate occasions: once having discontinued spironolactone (as part of the standard protocol); and on a separate occasion while taking at least 50 mg spironolactone. The scans were graded blinded to the knowledge of spironolactone status and compared. The sub-study was the same size as that which validated dexamethasone pre-treatment in our 2012 study, and slightly larger than the number of patients (four) in whom 25 mg spironolactone was reported to cause only slight de-suppression of plasma renin