Adrenal adenoma – small tumor with big function

Last week, we successfully performed laparoscopic adrenalectomy for a patient with adrenal adenoma with minimal intraoperative bleeding and an operating time of about 1 hour. There are two types of adrenal tumors: functional and non-functional. By non-functional, we mean that the tumor does not secrete hormones and does not lead to corresponding clinical symptoms, and the tumor is mostly found due to physical examination; functional adenoma means that the tumor secretes hormones and leads to manifestations such as high blood pressure, low blood potassium and centripetal obesity. The management of adrenal tumors has been fully overtaken from traditional open surgery to laparoscopic minimally invasive surgery, where the surgical incision is reduced from 30 cm to several small incisions of 0.5-1 cm. In this case, the patient had a functional adrenal tumor and had a markedly elevated blood pressure before surgery, which was related to hormone secretion by the tumor. After surgery, the patient’s blood pressure returned to normal. The golden color in the picture is the adrenal tumor, which is about 1.5 cm in size