Effect of prolonged administration of CRF on plasma concentrations of ACTH in patients with Addison's disease.

To investigate the possibility that the prolonged administration of corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) might suppress rather than enhance pituitary ACTH-secretion 24-hour infusions (50 micrograms/h) of ovine CRF were performed in 6 patients with adrenocortical insufficiency. CRF induced a heterogeneous behaviour of plasma ACTH concentrations in these hypercorticotropinemic patients but both a sustained increase and a suppression of ACTH was clearly absent at the end of the 24 hour infusion period. Thus, continuous administration of CRF does not appear to be a promising way to control abundance of plasma ACTH concentrations in patients with Addison's disease.