2019 Volume 110 Issue 1 Pages 12-17
A 77-year-old man with a complaint of impaired consciousness was brought to our emergency department. The patient was referred to our department because of a huge retroperitoneal tumor and multiple pulmonary nodules detected on computed tomography. Owning to an abnormally high level of dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate, right adrenal cancer was suspected. Pathological examination of the retroperitoneal tumor by echo-guided pericutaneous biopsy revealed an adrenocortical carcinoma. Under the diagnosis of stage IV adrenocortical carcinoma, mitotane therapy was started in May 2013. We adjusted the mitotane dose on the basis of the clinical evidence and the adrenocorticotropic hormone and cortisol levels.
The tumors had increased in size after 2 months of the mitotane therapy. However, 2 months later, the tumor had significantly decreased in size. The treatment was continued for 53 months until he could no longer take medications orally, because of his advanced age, worse condition, and disuse syndrome.
