Corticotropin-stimulated steroid profiles to predict shock development and mortality in sepsis: From the HYPRESS study

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at ACTH (Corticotropin).

Measurement results from healthy subjects were used to determine reference ranges, and those from placebo patients to predict in-hospital mortality.

Why It Was Studied

Steroid profiles in combination with a corticotropin stimulation test provide information about steroidogenesis and its functional reserves in critically ill patients.

Registered 1 May 2008, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00670254 .

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults.

The trial included adult patients with sepsis who were not in shock and were randomly assigned to placebo or hydrocortisone treatment.

Corticotropin tests were performed in patients prior to randomization and in healthy subjects.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the ACTH (Corticotropin) group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on ACTH (Corticotropin), so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the ACTH (Corticotropin) group a baseline to be compared against.

Cortisol and precursors of glucocorticoids (17-OH-progesterone, 11-desoxycortisol) and mineralocorticoids (11-desoxycorticosterone, corticosterone) were analyzed using the multi-analyte stable isotope dilution method (LC-MS/MS).

What Was Measured

Steroid profiles in combination with a corticotropin stimulation test provide information about steroidogenesis and its functional reserves in critically ill patients.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Adrenocorticotropic Hormone, Hydrocortisone, Hospital Mortality, Glucocorticoids, Mineralocorticoids, Corticosterone and Cortodoxone.

Author keywords: Mass spectrometry, Sepsis, Septic, Shock and Steroids.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of ACTH (Corticotropin).

Its findings take up roughly 8 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2022 (Critical care (London, England)), a journal based in England.

More context: the ACTH (Corticotropin) compound page, all human trials.