Urinary Free Metanephrines for Diagnosis of Pheochromocytoma and Paraganglioma.

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma (PPGL) is diagnosed through biochemical confirmation of excessive catecholamines in urine and plasma. Recent technological developments have allowed us to measure urinary free metanephrines; however, the diagnostic accuracy of these new methods and the diagnostic cutoff values have not been evaluated.

METHODS:

This is a retrospective study of 595 subjects, including 71 PPGL cases and 524 controls. PPGL was based on pathological confirmation. Subjects with no evidence of PPGL over 2 years were included in the control group.

RESULTS:

Urinary free metanephrines yielded similar area under the curve (AUC) to urinary fractionated metanephrines and plasma free metanephrines. However, urinary free normetanephrine yielded a better AUC than did urinary fractionated normetanephrine. The optimal cutoff for urinary free metanephrine and normetanephrine corrected for urinary creatinine yielded 97.2% sensitivity and 98.1% specificity.

CONCLUSION:

Urinary free metanephrines are a reliable method for diagnosing PPGL in Asian populations compared with existing biochemical methods.

• Authors: Jiyeon Ahn, Ji Yun Park, Gyuri Kim, Sang-Man Jin, Kyu Yeon Hur, Soo-Youn Lee, Jae Hyeon Kim
• Journal: Endocrinology and metabolism (Seoul, Korea) (Endocrinol Metab (Seoul)) Vol. 36 Issue 3 Pg. 697-701 (06 2021) ISSN: 2093-5978 [Electronic] Korea (South)
• PMID: 34107605 (Publication Type: Journal Article)

Chemical References

• Metanephrine

Topics

• Adrenal Gland Neoplasms (diagnosis, pathology)
• Humans
• Metanephrine (urine)
• Paraganglioma (diagnosis, pathology)
• Pheochromocytoma (diagnosis, pathology)
• Retrospective Studies
• Sensitivity and Specificity