Department of Radiology, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
Department of Pancreatic Surgery, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2021 Jan 6;11:610744. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2020.610744. eCollection 2020.
Adrenal lymphangioma is a very rare benign lesion worldwide and remains challenging for early diagnosis, especially when the patient has some complicated clinical disease. This is an unusual case of a 68-year-old man who was admitted to our hospital with a history of pancreatic tumor. Computed tomography (CT) images and subsequent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed a mass located in the left adrenal gland, presenting a similar enhancement pattern of the pancreatic tumor, and according to the imaging features, the patient was suspected to have an adrenal metastatic tumor originating from the pancreatic tumor. The patient underwent a surgical resection of the pancreatic tumor and the left adrenal gland. The pathologic diagnosis proved to be lymphangioma deriving from the left adrenal gland. This is the first report presenting an atypical adrenal lymphangioma mimicking a metastatic tumor of pancreatic origin, which might be suggestive in the diagnosis of adrenal lesions and the subsequent clinical treatment, especially when patient has a particular medical history. As we know, imaging examination is helpful for accurate preoperative diagnosis; however, the diagnosis of malignant tumor solely based on imaging procedures should be made cautiously by radiologists.
肾上腺淋巴管瘤在全球范围内非常罕见,且其早期诊断仍然具有挑战性,特别是当患者存在一些复杂的临床疾病时。这是一例罕见的 68 岁男性病例,因胰腺肿瘤病史而入院。计算机断层扫描(CT)图像和随后的磁共振成像(MRI)显示,肿块位于左肾上腺,其增强模式与胰腺肿瘤相似,根据影像学特征,患者疑似患有源自胰腺肿瘤的左肾上腺转移瘤。患者接受了胰腺肿瘤和左肾上腺的手术切除。病理诊断为左肾上腺淋巴管瘤。这是首例表现为类似于胰腺来源转移瘤的非典型肾上腺淋巴管瘤的报告,这可能有助于诊断肾上腺病变和随后的临床治疗,特别是当患者具有特定的病史时。据我们所知,影像学检查有助于准确的术前诊断;然而,放射科医生应谨慎仅根据影像学检查来诊断恶性肿瘤。