Endocrine Abstracts

Aims: Short synacthen test (SST) is commonly used to diagnose adrenal insufficiency (AI), and with serum ACTH, can help differentiate between primary and secondary AI. The aim of this audit was to evaluate the clinical appropriateness of SST in our endocrine unit.Methods: We looked at all SSTs performed between August 2012 and August 2013. Relevant clinical information was collected from patient notes and database. A SST was considered inappropriate if n...

Background: A previous short Synacthen test (SST) audit in our hospital (2012) showed 70% of initial SST tests were normal with 9% inappropriate requests. A new pro forma was devised whereby one of four criteria (specific symptoms, medications, previous diagnosis, and physical findings) had to be satisfied to be able to undergo a SST. Additionally, we noticed that a number of patients were probably being over-diagnosed wth adrenal insufficiency (AI) based on a single 30 min co...