Morrison, R., Khan, J., Galloway, P., Mcneilly, J., Ahmed, S. F. and Penman, D. (2017) Use of cortisol and adrenal weight at pediatric postmortem. Fetal and pediatric pathology, 36(3), pp. 246-255. (doi: 10.1080/15513815.2017.1307475) (PMID:28394668)
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Abstract
We studied the relationship between adrenal weight and postmortem cortisol level in cases of infant death, and examined use of these measurements in adrenal insufficiency. We analyzed procurator-fiscal postmortem reports in the West of Scotland over a three year period. Combined adrenal weight was expressed as percentage of total body weight (%TBW). Of 106 cases, median (5(th), 95(th)) %TBW was 0.056 (0.025, 0.23) and median plasma cortisol was 8.4 ug/dl (1.0, 47.1). There was no correlation between %TBW and plasma cortisol (r = 0.09, p = 0.4). The lowest and highest plasma cortisol quartile had medians of 1.9 ug/dl (1.0, 3.4) and 34.3 ug/dl (17.3, 71.5), respectively. Infection was present in 6 cases (23.1%) in the lowest quartile and in 16 cases (61.5%) in the highest quartile (p = 0.01). Our results highlight the difficulty in interpretation of cortisol at postmortem and suggest that adrenal weight measurement alone may be insufficient for diagnosis of adrenal insufficiency.
Item Type: | Articles |
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Keywords: | Adrenal insufficiency, adrenal weight, autopsy, cortisol, postmortem. |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: | Khan, Mr Jansher and Ahmed, Professor Syed Faisal and Mcneilly, Dr Jane and Galloway, Dr Peter |
Authors: | Morrison, R., Khan, J., Galloway, P., Mcneilly, J., Ahmed, S. F., and Penman, D. |
College/School: | College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Medicine, Dentistry & Nursing |
Journal Name: | Fetal and pediatric pathology |
Publisher: | Taylor and Francis |
ISSN: | 1551-3815 |
ISSN (Online): | 1551-3823 |
Published Online: | 10 April 2017 |
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