[Hormonal and morphologic characteristics of adrenal incidentalomas]

The authors analyse hormonal and morphological characteristics of adrenal incidentalomas, i.e. pathological adrenal masses accidentally found on CT scan performed due to extraadrenal causes of other causes of adrenal pathology. The group of patients was consisted by 42 patients at the age 24-79 years (27 females and 15 males). The most frequent clinical symptoms included arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus and obesity. CT examinations revealed 36 cases of unilateral lesions (in 21 cases the lesions were localised on the right and in 15 cases on the left) and 6 bilateral lesions. The size of adrenal masses ranged from 7 mm to 12 cm. The CT examination helped in characterising myelolipomas in 3 cases, cysts in two cases, and pre-assuming malignity in 6 cases. Hormonal analyses have revealed primary aldosteronism in 2 cases, subclinical hypercortisolism in 1, steroid enzymopathy in 2 and secondary hyperaldosteronism in 2 patients. No patient had catecholamine overproduction. 19 patients were indicated for adrenalectomy with the following histological findings.: adenoma (n = 5), cyst (n = 2), myelolipoma (n = 3), carcinoma (n = 3), feochromocytoma, ganglioneuroma, metastases, lymphoma, sarcoidosis and pseudodrenal structure--Gravitz tumor (n = 1, respectively). The size of all neoplasms exceeded 3 cm, therefore the authors recommend adrenalectomy in incidentalomas with hormonal activity exceeding 3 cm in size. (Tab. 2, Fig. 1, Ref. 17.)