Cited by 403Adrenal Hormones and DisordersHormonal Regulation and HypertensionStress Responses and Cortisol

Consensus statement on the diagnosis, treatment and follow‐up of patients with primary adrenal insufficiency

Open access
Husebye, E. S., Allolio, B., Arlt, W., Badenhoop, K., Bensing, S., Betterle, C., Falorni, A., Gan, E. H. +6 more·2014·Journal of Internal Medicine

Abstract

Primary adrenal insufficiency ( PAI ), or Addison's disease, is a rare, potentially deadly, but treatable disease. Most cases of PAI are caused by autoimmune destruction of the adrenal cortex. Consequently, patients with PAI are at higher risk of developing other autoimmune diseases. The diagnosis of PAI is often delayed by many months, and most patients present with symptoms of acute adrenal insufficiency. Because PAI is rare, even medical specialists in this therapeutic area rarely manage more than a few patients. Currently, the procedures for diagnosis, treatment and follow‐up of this rare disease vary greatly within Europe. The common autoimmune form of PAI is characterized by the presence of 21‐hydroxylase autoantibodies; other causes should be sought if no autoantibodies are detected. Acute adrenal crisis is a life‐threatening condition that requires immediate treatment. Standard replacement therapy consists of multiple daily doses of hydrocortisone or cortisone acetate combined with fludrocortisone. Annual follow‐up by an endocrinologist is recommended with the focus on optimization of replacement therapy and detection of new autoimmune diseases. Patient education to enable self‐adjustment of dosages of replacement therapy and crisis prevention is particularly important in this disease. The authors of this document have collaborated within an EU project (Euadrenal) to study the pathogenesis, describe the natural course and improve the treatment for Addison's disease. Based on a synthesis of this research, the available literature, and the views and experiences of the consortium's investigators and key experts, we now attempt to provide a European Expert Consensus Statement for diagnosis, treatment and follow‐up.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1111/joim.12162

Cites

34 of 34 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • If these diagnoses are excluded, a CT scan of the adrenals may reveal evidence of adrenal infiltrative processes or metastases.

    “If these diagnoses are excluded, a CT scan of the adrenals may reveal evidence of adrenal infiltrative processes or metastases.”

    From Diagnosis and Treatment of Primary Adrenal Insufficiency: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline (2016) · cites this paper as [181]

    The Aetiologic diagnosis section (page unavailable) recommends adrenal CT for patients without 21OH antibodies and says it can demonstrate tumours or calcifications typical of tuberculosis. This supports the use of CT to investigate nonautoimmune causes, but the copy does not specifically say it reveals infiltrative processes or metastases. (LLM, conf=0.80)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • The most common causes of primary adrenal insufficiency are autoimmune destruction of the adrenal cortex in adults and congenital adrenal hyperplasia in children.

    “The most common causes of PAI are autoimmune destruction of the adrenal cortex in adults and CAH in children.”

    From Diagnosis and Treatment of Primary Adrenal Insufficiency: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline (2016) · cites this paper as [181]

    The Introduction calls autoimmunity the predominant cause of PAI in Europe, and Aetiologic diagnosis says it accounts for about 85% of Western European diagnoses after congenital adrenal hyperplasia is excluded. The paper does not say that congenital adrenal hyperplasia is the most common cause in children; it says only that children without 21OH antibodies often have genetic causes. The adult claim is therefore supported in a narrower geographic context, but the childhood ranking is not. (LLM, conf=0.87)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • These etiologies can be screened for using 21-hydroxylase antibodies and a baseline serum 17-hydroxyprogesterone level.

    “These etiologies can be screened for using 21-hydroxylase antibodies and a baseline serum 17hydroxyprogesterone level.”

    From Diagnosis and Treatment of Primary Adrenal Insufficiency: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline (2016) · cites this paper as [181]

    The Aetiologic diagnosis section recommends a 21-hydroxylase antibody assay as the first test to establish the cause of primary adrenal insufficiency. It does not recommend or describe a baseline serum 17-hydroxyprogesterone level for this purpose; searches for that test found no supporting passage. No page number is available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • A daily glucocorticoid dose equivalent to prednisolone ≥ 5 mg for longer than 1 month represents an adrenal suppressive dose in a proportion of adults.

    “A daily glucocorticoid dose equivalent to prednisolone ≥ 5 mg, for longer than 1 month represents an adrenal suppressive dosein a proportion of adults [3, 4].”

    From Guidelines for the management of glucocorticoids during the peri‐operative period for patients with adrenal insufficiency (2020) · cites this paper as [3]

    The Glucocorticoid replacement table lists 4–5 mg of prednisolone daily as a replacement dose for patients with primary adrenal insufficiency. It does not say that taking the equivalent of at least 5 mg for longer than one month suppresses adrenal function in a proportion of adults; the duration and suppressive-risk claim are unsupported. (LLM, conf=0.78)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Therapeutic patient education is recommended by two international consensus statements on the management of PAI.

    “Therapeutic patient education is recommended by two international consensus statements on the management of PAI.18,64”

    From Adrenal crisis: prevention and management in adult patients (2019) · cites this paper as [64]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. [10]10. Neufeld M, Maclaren N, Blizzard R. Autoimmune polyglandu- lar syndromes. Pediatr Ann 1980; 9: 154-62.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Husebye, E. S., Allolio, B., Arlt, W., Badenhoop, K., Bensing, S., Betterle, C., Falorni, A., Gan, E. H., Hulting, A. ‐., Kasperlik‐Zaluska, A., Kämpe, O., Løvås, K., Meyer, G., & Pearce, S. H.
Affiliations
  • Haukeland University Hospital (NO)
  • Universitätsklinikum Würzburg (DE)
  • University of Birmingham (GB)
  • Goethe University Frankfurt (DE)
  • Karolinska Institutet (SE)
  • University of Padua (IT)
  • University of Perugia (IT)
  • Newcastle University (GB)
  • Department of Endocrinology Medical Center of Postgraduate Education Warsaw Poland
  • Uppsala University (SE)
Corresponding author
Husebye, E. S.
Venue
Journal of Internal Medicine
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2013-12-16
Volume
275
Issue
2
Pages
104-115
ISSN
  • 0954-6820 (ISSN-L)
  • 1365-2796
OpenAlex
W2123534035
Cited by
403
References
34
Citations by year
2026: 19 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 32 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 30 · 2020: 43 · 2019: 27 · 2018: 31 · 2017: 40 · 2016: 35 · 2015: 40 · 2014: 28 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 1
FWCI
27.27
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of Internal Medicine (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • University of Birmingham Research Portal (University of Birmingham) (submittedVersion)
  • Padua Research Archive (University of Padova) (submittedVersion)
  • Newcastle University ePrints (Newcastle Univesity)
Funders
FP7 (201167)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism › Adrenal Hormones and Disorders
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism › Hormonal Regulation and Hypertension
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
Keywords
Addison's disease, autoimmune adrenal insufficiency, 21-hydroxylase autoantibodies, adrenal crisis, hydrocortisone replacement, fludrocortisone, autoimmune disease comorbidity, diagnosis, follow-up, patient education
MeSH terms
Acute Disease, Addison Disease, Adrenal Cortex, Adrenal Insufficiency, Algorithms, Autoantibodies, Chronic Disease, Cortisone, Diagnosis, Differential, Drug Administration Schedule, Drug Interactions, Emergency Treatment, Europe, Female, Humans, Hydrocortisone, Male, Prednisolone, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Complications, Steroid 21-Hydroxylase, Autoimmunity

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review