Editorial Subclinical Cushing’s Syndrome and Metabolic Disorder

The concept of subclinical Cushing’s syndrome stands on the presence of adrenocorticotropic hormone-independent subclin-ical hypercortisolism without a clear Cushingoid phenotype and may be observed in patients with an incidentally found adrenal adenoma [1]. Kim et al. [2] found that the prevalence of subclin-ical Cushing’s syndrome in Korean patients with adrenal inci-dentaloma was 7.1 % (19 of 268 patients), which suggests that subclinical hypercortisolism is commonly found in patients with this disorder. Moreover, the presence of subclinical hypercorti-solism in these patients was also associated with an increased prevalence of cardiovascular disease risk factors such as diabe-tes and hypertension [2]. As findings shown in Kim’s study, sub-clinical hypercortisolism is the most common hormonal abnor-mality in patients with adrenal incidentaloma [3] and even a very low excess of cortisol in patients with subclinical Cushing’