PATIENTS with hypertension may exhibit clinical signs and biochemical abnorm,alities which point to an adrenal lesion as the underlying cause. The presence of episodic hypertension, Cushing's syndrome, elevated urine vanillylmandelic acid and metanephrine, or persistent hypokalemia is an important finding that suggests an adrenal lesion. Ultimately, the actual demonstration of the lesion, local...

Pheochromocytoma, albeit rare, is an important cause of secondary hypertension. Although potentially curable, it can be lethal if it goes unrecognized. We reviewed the medical charts of 145 patients with ICD-9 coded as adrenal tumors from 1988 to 2004. A total of 140 patients were enrolled in this study. Eighteen patients had pheochromocytoma, and five patients had paraganglioma. Among these 23...

A 61-year old female presented with paroxysmal hypertension and a 4.5cm left adrenal mass on CT scan. Repeated measurements of 24-hour urinary fractionated metanephrines, total catecholamines and vanillylmandelic acid (VMA) were within normal range. A further scintigraphic study with (131)I -metaiodobenzylguanidine ((131)I-MIBG) revealed selective concentration of the radiotracer, corresponding...

Intravenous administration of tritium-labeled 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (dopa) to human subjects resulted in the labeling of endogenous catecholamines and vanillylmandelic acid (VMA). Determination of the changes in specific activity of these compounds with time in fractional collections of urine and in cardiac biopsies from patients undergoing corrective cardiac surgery permitted estimation o...

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to document the various causes of dilated cardiomyopathy in a large group of adult patients with congestive heart failure. BACKGROUND Previous reports of the causes of dilated cardiomyopathy have usually been case reports of a single specific etiology or review articles. The frequency of any single specific heart muscle disease is largely unknown. ME...

Assessment of catecholamine production and excretion is important in the laboratory detection of pheochromocytoma, a rare but curable cause of hypertension. Advances in catecholamine and metabolite methodologies have enhanced the diagnostic acumen by increasing analytical sensitivity and eliminating many of the interferences observed with earlier methods. Estimation of urinary catecholamines me...

BACKGROUND Although metabolomic approaches have begun to document numerous changes that arise in end stage renal disease (ESRD), how these alterations relate to established metabolic phenotypes in uremia is unknown. METHODS In 200 incident hemodialysis patients we used partial least squares discriminant analysis to identify which among 166 metabolites could best discriminate individuals with ...

Daily carbohydrate intake of seven men with normal weight was limited to 220-265 g/d for 6 d and then increased to 620-770 g/d for 20 d, while intake of protein, fat, and sodium remained constant. Carbohydrate overfeeding increased body weight by 4.8%, basal oxygen consumption (VO2) by 7.4%, BMR by 11.5%, and serum triiodothyronine levels by 32%. Overfeeding did not affect the thermic effect of...

Four infants are described who presented with rapid enlargement of the liver. This was found to be due to neuroblastoma which had metastasized to the liver; the condition was associated with high levels of urinary vanillylmandelic acid (VMA). In 3 infants the primary tumour was in the adrenal gland and in one it was not identified. One infant died after laparotomy and 2 infants survive disease ...

Rationale:Adrenocortical oncocytoma is an extremely rare tumor of the adrenal gland. Its diagnostic criteria and biological behavior has not yet reached a consensus. The purpose of this study is to investigate the clinical characteristics of adrenocortical oncocytoma. Patient concerns: The clinical data from 11 cases of adrenocortical oncocytoma were retrospectively analyzed. Five patients foun...