Integrated structural and functional imaging of adrenal tumors can yield false-positive results, such as MIBG scintigraphy falsely suggesting a pheochromocytoma for a cortical adrenal adenoma.
False-positive MIBG uptake may misclassify adrenal adenomas as pheochromocytomas; leaves open the role of histopathology for definitive characterization.
BACKGROUND: Evaluation of a patient with melanoma in whom an adrenal mass was detected on CT and MR during follow-up and further characterized with PET-CT and MIBG scintigraphy. CASE REPORT: In this case report, we describe a patient with melanoma in whom an adrenal mass was detected on CT and MRI during post-surgical follow-up and was further characterized with radionuclide studies consisting of PET-CT and MIBG scintigraphy. Although the results of imaging studies suggested that the mass was a pheochromocytoma, a cortical adrenal adenoma was histologically proven. CONCLUSIONS: Integrated structural and functional imaging is recommended to characterize adrenal tumors; however, mistakes may occur and therefore careful imaging evaluation is required.
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Dell’Aversana et al. (2017) studied this question.
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