Adrenal tumors associated with renal cell carcinoma

We experienced two cases with renal cell carcinoma who showed enlargement of the contralateral adrenal gland. In case 1, the enlarged adrenal gland was a non-functioning adrenal adenoma, and in case 2, it was a metastatic adrenal tumor. Non-functioning adrenal adenomas are benign tumors of the adrenal cortex often found incidentally at autopsy or on computed tomography (CT) studies of the upper abdomen. Adrenal adenomas have been reported to occur in 9.5-14% of patients with renal cell carcinoma, while the incidence being 1.5-8.7% in the general population. Since metastases of renal cell carcinoma to the adrenal glands are not uncommon, it is important to distinguish between non-functioning adrenal adenomas and metastatic tumors. Therefore, we studied the incidence of adrenal tumors (including metastatic tumors and benign tumors) in patients with renal cell carcinoma who underwent the abdominal CT study in our hospital. From 1982 to 1989, CT had been performed in 67 patients with renal cell carcinoma. Six adrenal masses were identified with CT in these patients. Three out of the 6 patients probably had metastatic tumors and one of the 3 adrenal masses was pathologically diagnosed as metastatic tumor. The other three masses were benign on pathology and only one of them was pathologically diagnosed as non-functioning adrenal adenoma. The incidence of adrenal adenomas on the CT study was lower than that of previous studies based on autopsy. The reasons of this difference in results between their studies and ours are not clear.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)