Safety of Minimally Invasive Surgical Techniques in Large Adrenal Lesions: A Single-Centre Study

To compare perioperative outcomes of minimally invasive surgery for ≥5 cm and <5 cm adrenal lesions.

Retrospective cohort study.

Hacettepe University School of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey, between October 2007 and September 2019.

Data of 83 patients operated for adrenal lesions was collected retrospectively. Patients were categorized into two groups based on the size of the adrenal gland as <5 cm and ≥5 cm. The groups were compared in terms of perioperative outcomes.

The median age of the patients was 51 (41-60) years, with a female-to-male ratio of 27/56. The median follow-up period was 27 (11.5-91) months. Of 83 adrenal masses, 60 (72.3%) were in the <5 cm group and 23 (27.7%) were in the ≥5 cm group. Fifteen (18.1%) patients underwent adrenalectomy for lung cancer metastasis, whereas three (3.6%) for renal cell carcinoma metastasis. The overall rate of post-operative complications was 10.8%. Post-operative complication rates were similar in each group (p=0.433). Operation time was found to be significantly higher in patients with large adrenal masses (p=0.003).

Minimally invasive surgical techniques have the same perioperative results in the group with adrenal lesions ≥5 cm compared to <5 cm and may be safely employed in this group of patients.

Laparoscopy, Robotic assisted laparoscopy, Adrenalectomy, Metastasectomy, Adrenal gland neoplasms.