Use of cortisol and adrenal weight at pediatric postmortem

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)

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
• 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