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Primary non-functioning tumours of the adrenal cortex: an eight-year experience in Turkey
S Aydintuğ1, S Koçak, S Eraslan
1Department of Surgery, Ankara University Medical School, Turkey.
Objective:
To report our eight year experience of the treatment of primary non-functioning adrenal tumours diagnosed incidentally by computed tomography or ultrasonography.
Design:
Open study.
Setting:
University hospital, Turkey.
Subjects:
20 patients with primary non-functioning adrenal tumours that were diagnosed incidentally during the eight years 1986-93 and who were treated in our department.
Interventions:
All patients underwent detailed endocrine studies followed by unilateral adrenalectomy.
Main Outcome Measures:
Morbidity, mortality, and outcome.
Results:
There were 18 women and 2 men, mean age 50 (range 24-67). No patient died and one developed a wound infection. Histopathological examination showed adrenocortical adenoma (n = 17), carcinoma (n = 2, one of which was a 57-year-old woman with a 35 mm tumour), and hyperplasia (n = 1).
Conclusion:
Excision of non-functioning adrenal tumours is safe and we recommend it because there are no exclusion criteria for malignancy, and non-operative treatment has not been clearly defined.