AccScience Publishing / EJMO / Volume 6 / Issue 2 / DOI: 10.14744/ejmo.2022.12090
CASE REPORT

Pitfall in the Diagnosis of an Aggressive Adrenal Mass with Prominent Hirsutism: A Case Report

Ariadni Spyroglou1,2 Marianna Karamanou3 Athina Markou4 Labrini Papanastasiou4 Anastasia Dimitriadi5 Vasiliki Mavroeidi6 Chrysanthi Aggeli7 Anna Tsonou8 Theodosia Choreftaki5 Denise Kolomodi6 Georgios Boutzios6 Georgios N. Zografos7 Krystallenia Alexandraki1
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1 Department of Surgery, Aretaieio Hospital Athens, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
2 Clinic for Endocrinology, Diabetology and Clinical Nutrition, University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
3 Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens, Athens, Greece
4 Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes Center, 'G Gennimatas' General Hospital, Athens, Greece
5 Department of Pathology, General Hospital of Athens "G. Gennimatas", Athens, Greece
6 Department of Pathophysiology, Endocrine Unit, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Medical School , Athens, Greece
7 Department of Surgery, Athens General Hospital “G. Gennimatas”, Athens, Greece
8 Cytological Laboratory, General Hospital of Thoracic Diseases “I Sotiria”, Athens, Greece
EJMO 2022, 6(2), 186–189; https://doi.org/10.14744/ejmo.2022.12090
Submitted: 29 October 2021 | Accepted: 2 April 2022 | Published: 6 June 2022
© 2022 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
Abstract

Here, we present the case of a 74-year-old woman with clinically prominent hirsutism and a large adrenal mass where the clinical diagnosis was inconsistent with the histological appearance. Her hormonal evaluation showed normal androgens with slightly inadequate cortisol suppression upon dexamethasone test but normal 24-h urinary free cortisol. Abdominal computed tomography (CT) imaging showed a large inhomogeneous mass of the left adrenal and the FDG PET/CT scan revealed hypermetabolic foci in the right upper lobe of the lung, in hilum lymph nodes, and in the soft tissue in proximity to the right femoral neck. The cytological examination of a biopsy from the pulmonary lesion showed a highly malignant neoplasm of unknown origin, and left adrenalectomy, nephrectomy, and splenectomy were performed. The pathologists reported infiltration of the adrenal by an undifferentiated carcinoma of unknown origin. Due to the clinical suspicion of adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC), a mitotane therapy along with hydrocortisone substitution was directly initiated, and the patient also received 6 cycles of  chemotherapy. However, the patient’s condition deteriorated quickly, and she died. Upon availability of steroidogenic factor-1 staining, the positivity of the resected tumor could be documented postmortem, confirming the diagnosis of an ACC. Taken together, this case underlines the difficulties in the differential diagnosis of aggressive adrenal masses.

Keywords
Adrenocortical carcinoma
adrenalectomy
hirsutism
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the present study. The present study did not receive any funding.
References

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Eurasian Journal of Medicine and Oncology, Electronic ISSN: 2587-196X Print ISSN: 2587-2400, Published by AccScience Publishing