Adrenal masses in young patients should always be taken very seriously. In young patients, the risk of it being cancerous or hormoneproducing is much higher than in older people.

This is a patient from Louisiana. He is very young, in his early 20s, and had undergone a CT scan of his abdomen. The scan was performed for other reasons but there was a finding of an incidental large left adrenal mass.

It measured 5.3 cm (greater than 2 inches) and it had some characteristics on the scan that was atypical or indeterminate. The patient did not have any symptoms but of course we measured all his hormone levels (cortisol, aldosterone, and adrenalinetype hormones) which were all negative.

As you know, one should almost never perform a biopsy of an adrenal tumor so clearly this tumor needed to come out.

He came down here for his operation and had a very straightforward left MiniBack Scope Adrenalectomy (MBSA)

Our expert endocrine pathologist called within two days and gave me the very good news. This was a benign adrenal ganglioneuroma. Ganglioneuromas of the adrenal gland are rare. In the photo placed at the end of the video, you can see how the tumor arises just adjacent to the normal adrenal gland. These tumors are all benign, meaning not cancerous, and he is completely cured.

He will live a perfectly normal life and will never have to worry about this again.

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