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2000
Volume 21, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 1573-4056
  • E-ISSN: 1875-6603

Abstract

Background

Adrenal incidentalomas have increased over the past years. Although there are a lot of studies related to the frequency of adrenal masses and comorbidities, whether patients with functional or nonfunctional adrenal masses have higher risk is still a controversial issue.

Methods

A total of 464 patients (female/male: 309/155) with adrenal incidentalomas were evaluated and followed up for 8 years. The patients were divided into 5 subgroups, including Autonomous Cortisol Secretion (ACS), Cushing Syndrome (CS), Pheochromocytoma (Pheo), Non-functional Adrenal Incidentalomas (NFAI), and Primary Aldosteronism (PA).

Results

While 336 (72.4%) of the patients had NFAI, the others suffered from ACS (10.8%), CS (4.3%), Pheo (4.1%), and PA (8.4%), respectively. When comparing biochemical and demographical data, BMI (p=0.77), Hba1c (p=0.495), FPG (p=0.28), LDL (p=0.66), and HDL (p=0.521) were similar among the patients with functional and nonfunctional adrenal masses. The most common comorbidities were hypertension (n=259, 55.8%), diabetes mellitus (n=158, 34.1%), and dyslipidemia (33.4%), respectively. While 84 (32.4%) patients with hypertension had functional adrenal masses, the others (n=175, 67.6%) had non-functional adrenal incidentalomas. In subgroup analyses, hypertension was more common in patients with PA (87.2% . 72%, p=0.001) and ACS. In multivariable regression analyses, hypertension (p<0.001), cortisol (p=0.003), and aldosterone (p=0.04) levels were significantly correlated with functionality.

Conclusion

Hypertension was the most common comorbidity in patients with adrenal adenomas, especially in functional adrenal adenomas related to serum cortisol and aldosterone levels.

© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Bentham Science Publishers. This is an open access article published under CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
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