Case of a patient with a small pheochromocytoma

Abstract

We report the case of a 17-year-old female patient with a very small right adrenal pheochromocytoma. She had been suffering from 5- to 10-min spells of tremor, numbness of extremities, facial pallor, cyanosis, palpitation and headache for about one year. Her baseline urine catecholamine levels were often in the reference or sometimes diagnostic ranges, and the diameter of the adrenal tumor was about 1.5 cm on MR images. The clinical diagnosis of pheochromocytoma was, however, made on the basis of a significant increase in plasma adrenaline levels during the spells and the positive uptake of 131-MIBG in the tumor. All of the symptoms and biochemical abnormalities were resolved after right adrenalectomy. Pheochromocytoma should be considered in patients with short spells and adrenal tumor regardless of the tumor size.