J Korean Soc Endocrinol.  1997 Sep;12(3):478-484.

A Case of Neurofibromatosis with Bilateral Pheochromocytoma

• Kim HS
• Shin YG
• Kim IH
• Kim YM
• Cho MY

Abstract

Pheochromocytoma is originated from chromaffin cell of sympathetic nervous system and associated with other disease, such as neurofibromatosis, duodenal carcinoid, medullary thyroid cancer and parathyroid adenoma. Especially, pheochromocytoma is developed more than 50% in neurofibromatosis associated with hypertension. In such cases, several clinical features documented as more frequent bilateral phochromocytoma, more associated with other neuroendocrine tumors and thus more poor prognosis. We can observe the sustained hypertension despite of surgical resection of tumors in pheochromocytoma cases. One of the possible reason of post operative sustained hypertension is the pheochromocytoma originated from minor organ of Zukerkandl that was not resected during operation. Untreated or delayed treated cases with pheochromocytoma were often expired by complication of hypertension such as cerebrovascular hemorrhage, myocardial infarction, etc. Thus, in neurofibromatosis with hypertension, screening of pheochromocytorna is very important for the early detection of tumor and more favorable prognosis. Recently, We experienced a case of neurofibromatosis associated with bilateral pheochromocy-toma expired by cerebral hemorrhage during operation, so we report the case with literature review.

MeSH Terms

Carcinoid Tumor
Cerebral Hemorrhage
Chromaffin Cells
Hemorrhage
Hypertension
Mass Screening
Myocardial Infarction
Neuroendocrine Tumors
Neurofibromatoses*
Parathyroid Neoplasms
Pheochromocytoma*
Prognosis
Sympathetic Nervous System
Thyroid Neoplasms