Differences in the molecular mechanisms of adrenocortical tumorigenesis between children and adults

Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare malignancy with poor prognosis. The incidence of pediatric adrenocortical tumors (ACT) is remarkably high in Southern Brazil, where it is estimated to be 15 times greater than the world occurrence, due to a high frequency of a germline mutation (p.R337H) of the TP53 gene. Differently from adults, pediatric adrenocortical neoplasms with apparently poor prognosis based on histopathological features have often a good clinical outcome. A high Weiss score is definitely not a good predictor of survival in children, but it is much more discriminative of a poor outcome in adult tumors. Besides important differences in prognosis, adrenocortical tumorigenesis has distinct patterns between children and adults. In this review, we summarize recent data from ours and other Institutions, showing that the prognostic importance of molecular markers is striking different between pediatric and adult ACT. Although the majority of pediatric ACT are associated with p.R337H germline mutation, it is not a predictor of poor outcome in children and adolescents with ACT. On the other side, TP53 somatic mutations define a subgroup of adult ACC with different tumorigenesis and unfavorable prognosis. IGF system has a central role in the malignant phenotype of ACT, but in adult tumors it is mediated by IGF2 over-expression and in pediatric tumors by IGF1R over-expression. Finally, SF1 over-expression is associated with decreased overall survival and recurrence-free survival in adult ACC, but not in the pediatric group. In conclusion, discriminating benign and malignant behavior is more challenging in pediatric ACT than in adult tumors.