This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related article  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Endocrine Surgery  • Prognosis/ Outcomes  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Quan-Yang Duh, MD

Arch Surg. 2006;141:1205.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

An ideal operation for a pheochromocytoma in a patient with multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2A (MEN 2A) would be to remove the pheochromocytoma and all of the medulla while saving the adrenal cortex. Residual medullary tissue can become hyperplastic or develop recurrent pheochromocytoma. The cortex is necessary for adrenocortical steroid production, and insufficient cortex causes Addison disease. The adrenal gland is like a peanut butter sandwich: the medulla is the peanut butter and the cortex, the bread. The ideal operation of removing all the peanut butter (medulla) but keeping the bread (cortex) is a nearly impossible task. In practice, cortex-sparing adrenalectomy is a compromise, weighing the risks of recurrent pheochromocytoma and adrenocortical insufficiency.

Most endocrine surgeons do not prophylactically resect a normal-appearing adrenal gland in patients with MEN 2, and many would attempt to spare the adrenal cortex when Addison disease is a significant risk. Thus, for . . . [Full Text of this Article]

AUTHOR INFORMATION


CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED ARTICLE

Estimated Risk of Pheochromocytoma Recurrence After Adrenal-Sparing Surgery in Patients With Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia Type 2A
Reza Asari, Christian Scheuba, Klaus Kaczirek, and Bruno Niederle
Arch Surg. 2006;141(12):1199-1205.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT