Figure 1.

Excluding patients with underlying pituitary, adrenal or CNS disease, current glucocorticoid therapy is associated with increased rates of SST failure (A). SST failure is common across all routes of glucocorticoid administration, although it is most frequent in patients on oral therapy (B). (*P<0.05, **P<0.01). The impact of inhaled glucocorticoid therapy on the prevalence of adrenal suppression (C, D, E and F). Beclometasone and fluticasone administration cause a dose-dependent increase in SST failure rates (C and D) and absolute reductions in basal and 30-min cortisol levels after synthetic ACTH_{1 – 24} stimulation (E and F) (basal serum cortisol=black bars, 30-min cortisol=white bars) (*P<0.05 vs lowest daily dose).