A 38-year-old angandwadi worker diagnosed with pheochromocytoma, a rare tumour of the adrenal glands, which is notorious for mimicking symptoms of various other diseases, has been successfully treated by surgically removing the affected adrenal gland by doctors at Vadamalayan Hospitals here.
P. Vanitha Rani, the patient from Karuppatti near Sholavandan, was suffering from hypertension, palpitations and severe headache. “I was also coughing up blood occasionally. Though that was temporarily addressed, the headache never stopped,” she said.
According to doctors, she was initially examined for heart or brain-related ailments by subjecting her to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, electrocardiogram, echo-cardiogram and other tests. “As the tests did not reveal any problem, we did an abdominal ultrasound, which indicated the possibility of pheochromocytoma in right adrenal gland, which was subsequently confirmed,” said M. Srinivasan, Senior Consultant Cardiologist.
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J. Sathish Kinne, Senior Consultant Urologist, said pheochromocytoma, which had a rate of occurrence of one in 10 lakh, resulted in the release of abnormally high quantity of stress hormones of adrenaline and noradrenaline. “The primarily role of adrenal glands is to produce stress hormones, which catalyse flight-or-flight response mechanism in the body by inducing a number of things such as increased blood flow and output of the heart. Now, imagine this happening to a person sporadically for no reason. That is what pheochromocytoma does,” he said.
“That is why it is called a ‘great mimicker’ since the symptoms are of different diseases. Patients are often diagnosed wrongly with psychiatric disorders because of pheochromocytoma,” he added.
Stating that the disease often got overlooked due to its rarity, Dr. Srinivasan said doctors and patients should always check for pheochromocytoma when the person had episodic symptoms of hypertension, palpitations or headaches, which did not get arrested in the normal course of treatment.
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Pheochromocytoma, if left untreated, could even lead to death due to stroke or cardiac arrest triggered by hypertension. “Pheochromocytoma can also be cancerous, although it is rare,” he added.
Dr. Sathish said the surgery was challenging since there was risk of blood pressure and pulse rate going to extremely high and low levels due to stimulation of the tumour. “A normal adrenal gland weighed around four to five grams. For the patient, it was 103 grams due to the tumour,” he said, adding that the removal of one of the adrenal glands would not affect the patient since she could manage with the other.