The role of laparoscopic surgery in isolated adrenal metastasis: our personal experience

Over the past 25 years, mini-invasive adrenalectomy has become the treatment of choice for most adrenal diseases, and even adrenal malignancies in selected cases. The aim of this retrospective evaluation is to assess the effectiveness of laparoscopic adrenalectomy as a treatment of choice for adrenal metastases.

From 2008 to 2018, 207 laparoscopic adrenalectomies have been performed in our Department of Surgery. Among these, in 12 cases the indication to adrenalectomy was metastatic adrenal lesion.

The right adrenal gland was removed in 8 cases and the left adrenal gland in 4 cases. A complete resection (R0) was achieved in all patients. The median operative time was 130.6 ± 23.3 min. The median postoperative hospitalization was 3.5±2.0 days. Only one patient showed postoperative grade II complications, according to Clavien-Dindo classification. All patients underwent follow-up at 6-12-18 months without showing disease recurrence. There was no intra and perioperative mortality. Conversion to laparotomic surgery has never been performed. Mean tumor size was 2.4 cm ±1.6 cm.

Laparoscopic adrenalectomy for metastasis permits to achieve similar results to the open approach in term of oncological outcomes, but gaining in terms of postoperative hospitalization, intra and post-operative complications as well a greater patient compliance.