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. 2022 Feb 14;13:20420188211058583. doi: 10.1177/20420188211058583

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© The Author(s), 2022

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

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Figure 1. — Schematic of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis with the cortisol and corticosterone biosynthetic pathways emphasized. Etomidate (and many etomidate-based analogs) potently inhibits the action of 11β-hydroxylase, thereby preventing steroidogenesis of cortisol. Etomidate also inhibits cholesterol side-chain cleavage enzyme, but this occurs at higher concentrations than those required to inhibit 11β-hydroxylase. The green arrows symbolize stimulating effects, while red arrows symbolize negative feedback.