Adrenal gland fine needle aspiration: a multi-institutional analysis of 139 cases

Adrenal gland lesions span a range of entities from benign and malignant primary neoplasms to metastatic tumors. Fine-needle aspiration (FNA) provides a minimally invasive diagnostic tool to stage patients with known malignancy and procure material for molecular testing. This study characterizes the clinicopathologic associations of patients with adrenal gland FNA from 2 large hospitals.

FNAs were identified by query of electronic medical record from 2002-2019. Clinical and pathological information was collated and correlated with corresponding surgical diagnosis when available.

Of 139 cases, the majority (n = 127, 91%) were adequate computed tomography-guided FNAs and included the following diagnoses: positive for malignancy (n = 77, 55%), negative for malignancy (n = 32, 23%), neoplastic cells present (n = 16, 12%), nondiagnostic (n = 12, 9%), atypical (n = 1, 1%), and suspicious for carcinoma (n = 1, 1%). The majority (94%, n = 72 of 77) of malignancies were metastatic tumors, most frequently carcinoma (n = 53 of 72, 74%), followed by melanoma (n = 11 of 72, 15%), lymphoma (n = 4 of 72, 6%), and sarcoma (n = 4 of 72, 6%). Metastatic carcinomas included lung (n = 21 of 72, 29%), genitourinary (n = 12 of 72, 17%), and hepatobiliary or gastrointestinal tract (n = 11 of 72, 15%) primaries. Primary adrenal neoplasms (n = 23) included adenomas (n = 11 of 23, 48%), pheochromocytomas (n = 4 of 23, 17%), and myelolipomas (n = 3 of 23, 13%). Thirty-two patients with metastases died of disease after median follow-up of 8 months.

High specimen adequacy (n = 127, 91%) and low indeterminate rates (n = 2, 2%) are achieved with adrenal FNA. Most aspirated lesions represent metastases from primary lung carcinomas, but other primary sites including those below the diaphragm are part of the diagnostic differential. Adrenal metastasis was associated with a poor prognosis, with median survival of 8 months.