[Surgical aspects of the treatment of adrenal gland diseases]

Abstract

With the greatly enhanced accuracy of current endocrinologic diagnosis assisted by precise diagnostic imaging, together with greatly enhanced preparation of patients with endocrinopathy for safer anesthetic and surgical procedure (e.g. adrenal cortical cancers, cortisol and aldosterone producing adenomas and pheochromocytomas), operative procedures can be planned and conducted more precisely. For the surgeon, the strategy for treatment of functional and neoplastic disorders of the adrenal glands has essentially to consider the anatomy of the suprarenal glands, the deleterious effects of hormone excess before and during operation, the presumed nature of incidentally discovered adrenal mass and the size of the tumor.