Biomarker(s) for Glucocorticoids

Plain-language summary

The investigators have shown that patients with adrenal insufficiency (Addison's disease), a rare disorder, have doubled the expected mortality rate in Sweden despite Standard of Care glucocorticoid (GC) replacement. One % of the Swedish population are, however, receiving GCs for inflammatory diseases, but management is empirical and adjusted to underlying disease activity. The desired anti-inflammatory therapeutic effects cannot be differentiated from the adverse metabolic (osteoporosis, obesity, diabetes mellitus) and immunosuppressive side effects of GC. This frequently results in suboptimal GC therapy with adverse effects due to over-dosing or poor efficacy due to under-dosing. The primary aim is to identify a biomarker for the metabolic effects of GCs. Patients with Addison's disease completely lack endogenous GCs and can therefore be considered a human GC knock-out model. They can therefore be studied during near-physiological exposure and during GC starvation. This will uniquely allow a very clean biomarker identification model (using transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics). The secondary aim is to validate candidate biomarker(s) in a dose-response study using the same patient population. A biomarker of GC actions will make it possible to individualised therapy during pharmacological GC treatment. It would allow GC replacement to be monitored in Addison's disease and could become a specific diagnostic tool in patients with GC deficiency and excess (Cushings syndrome).

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