Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Pheochromocytomas-paragangliomas are rare neuroendocrine tumors that secrete catecholamines from chromaffin cells of the adrenal medulla, sympathetic or parasympathetic ganglia. Unrecognized pheochromocytomas are associated with high mortality, most often due to cardiovascular disorders.

Objective of the study: The objective of our work is to study the clinical, biological, radiological and therapeutic characteristics of pheochromocytomas/paragangliomas

Patients and methods: This is a retrospective descriptive and analytical study spread over a period of 20 years involving 48 patients hospitalized for pheochromocytoma/PPGL in the endocrinology-diabetology department of the public hospital (EPH) Bologhine ibn ziri - Algiers, Algeria.

Results: The analysis of our series finds a clear female predominance, with a mean age at diagnosis of 39 ± 16.02 (13-76) years. The circumstances of discovery were dominated by adrenal incidentaloma in 26 patients (54.2%). We observed in our cohort: arterial hypertension in 81.2% of our patients including 13 cases of resistant hypertension, 35.4% of patients are diabetic with 41% of cases with cardiovascular complications such as left ventricular hypertrophy in the majority of cases. The determination of urinary methoxylated derivatives was carried out in 75% of cases, with a mixed secretory predominance of 58%. An adrenal CT scan was performed in 95.83% of cases, apart from two patients in a pregnancy context. The mean size of the tumor was 65.7 ± 30 (10-150) mm with a mean spontaneous density (SD) (specified in 32.6% of cases) of 40.3 ± 19 (18 -98) HU. A significant positive correlation was observed between the size of the tumor and the rate of MN These pheochromocytomas were included in the context of MEN 2a in 9 cases, Von Hippel Lindau disease (VHL) in 2 cases and neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1) in 2 cases. Pathological examination confirmed the diagnosis in all cases. An average PASS score of 4.7 and a Ki 67 of 3.7%. A malignant form was observed in 6 cases. The postoperative evolution was marked by a normalization of blood pressure figures in 17 patients (58%) and normalization of the glycemic cycle in 04 patients (33.3%).

Conclusion: Most pheochromocytomas were diagnosed incidentally in our cohort. The clinical characteristics and management of our patients are consistent with those in the literature. Pheochromocytoma requires long-term monitoring.