Figure 1From: Adrenal function testing in patients with septic shockAdrenal failure diagnosis according to different criteria. The number of patients and the frequency of adrenal failure (AF) according to several baseline cortisol cutoff values (≤10, ≤15, ≤20, ≤25, and ≤34 μg/dl), the classical ambulatory criteria considering serum cortisol ≤ 20 μg/dl after stimulus with corticotropin at low dose (cortisol 60) and at high dose (cortisol 120), and the presence of Δmax1 ≤ 9 μg/dl and Δmax249 ≤ 9 μg/dl. It is observed that the higher the baseline cortisol level, the higher the theoretical diagnosis of AF. The low-dose test classified more patients with AF than the high-dose test when we considered the classical criteria of total cortisol ≤ 20 μg/dl after stimulus. This same pattern was observed for Δmax after low (Δmax1 ≤ 9 μg/dl) and high (Δmax249 ≤ 9 μg/dl) corticotropin doses.Back to article page