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In a recent paper published inThorax Fitzgerald and co-authors purport to have examined the effects of fluticasone propionate and beclomethasone dipropionate on adrenal function in children with asthma.1They state that they have used Dickstein’s low dose ACTH test 2 to do this. However, the dose of ACTH (500 ng/1.73 m2) used in Fitzgerald’s paper is a dose taken from a different paper describing a dose-response relationship between ACTH and serum cortisol concentration published by Crowleyet al 3 and a later paper by the same author comparing low dose with high dose ACTH cortisol secretory dynamics.4 Dickstein’s paper described a low dose ACTH test in adults using a test dose of 1 μg. This dose was not standardised for body surface area and is approximately twice the size of the dose used by Crowley et al. The cortisol …