Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Ganglioneuroma is an extremely rarely seen tumour in the adrenal gland, which originates from neural crest cells. Clinically, they generally have a silent course and in laboratory tests, the hormone levels expressed from the adrenal gland are within the normal range.

Case: A 46-year old male patient, for whom a mass in the adrenal gland was diagnosed incidentally on abdominal ultrasonography and MRI. The physical examination, laboratory tests and hormonal tests were within normal limits. As the appearance on dynamic adrenal CT was compatible with an adenomatous lesion, a biopsy was applied to the left adrenal gland. In the histopathological examination, findings were determined of neuroblastic tumour and ganglioneuroma, so adrenalectomy was applied and adrenal ganglioneuroma (mature type) was reported in the pathology examination.

Conclusion: Ganglioneuroma is rarely seen in adults and diagnosis is difficult as it is asymptomatic. As the masses are asymptomatic, they are not usually determined before reaching large dimensions. With increased availability of high-resolution tomography and MRI, an increase has been seen in the frequency of these types of masses. In recent years, ganglioneuroma have been separated into two sub-types as mature or maturing ganglioneuroma. In mature ganglioneuroma, the tumour is completely formed of a ganglioneuromatous component. Diagnosis is made histopathologically and it should be kept in mind as a rare tumour in adrenal masses.