Von Recklinghausen's disease (neurofibromatosis) associated with malignant pheochromocytoma

An autopsy case of von Recklinghausen's disease (vRD) associated with malignant pheochromocytoma is reported. The patient is a 36-year-old Japanese male and diagnosed as vRD both clinically and pathologically. He died from right adrenal tumor with wide spread metastases to lungs and bone marrow. The tumors presented satisfactory histological features in favor of pheochromocytoma and neurosecretory granules were demonstrated in both primary and metastatic lesions ultrastructurally. Statistical study of 182, 673 autopsy cases from Annuals of Japanese Autopsy Cases was also done in order to investigate the relationship between vRD and associating tumors including benign and malignant pheochromocytoma. Cases with vRD showed significantly higher incidences of malignant Schwannoma, neurofibrosarcoma, intracranial glioma, and pheochromocytoma compared to that of non-vRD cases. Other malignancies revealed rather smaller incidences than non-vRD cases. These neurogenic tumors are to be principal life threatening problems in patients with vRD. Rare incidence of malignant pheochromocytoma in vRD is to become from low incidence of pheochromocytoma, though significantly greater than that of non-vRD cases.