Adrenal Adenomas: Symptoms and Diagnosis
What are the symptoms?
Most patients have no symptoms caused by the adenoma, but when carrying out the tests accurate, even in these patients can be demonstrated in some excess production of some steroid hormones.
The most frequently found abnormality is the excessive production of a hormone called cortisol, which is involved in stress response and energy metabolism.
Adenomas that produce excess amounts of steroid hormones will lead to some obvious symptoms. Very high levels of cortisol will lead to Cushing’s syndrome, excessive production of aldosterone (a hormone involved in the management adrenal sodium) leads to the so-called Conn’s syndrome, and an excess of male sex hormones will lead to disturbances such as appearance of acne and hair. Very rarely it may be that these adenomas bleed and this leads to pain in the side or back.
How is the diagnosis?
Most adrenal adenomas are diagnosed by chance when performing either a scanner or a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), for reasons that may not have, in principle, any connection with adenoma in question.
In fact, studies show that imaging studies (especially the scanner) identify this so-called “adrenal nodule” or “incidentaloma” by an estimated 0.3 to 11% of patients. It is estimated that up to 80% of these patients with these masses have a benign nonfunctioning adenoma.
credit to: Dr. Alfonso José Santiago MarÃ, Dr. Shern Chew
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