Isolated clinical syndrome of primary aldosteronism in four patients with adrenocortical carcinoma.

Adrenocortical carcinoma is a rare disorder that can be revealed by an isolated syndrome of mineralocorticoid excess. In a retrospective study of 137 patients referred to our hypertension clinic in the past 10 years for primary aldosteronism, four cases of adrenocortical carcinoma were identified. The clinical presentation of these patients was similar to that of patients with Conn's adenoma, but preoperatively, malignant tumoral primary aldosteronism was suspected because of profound hypokalemia, marked elevation in plasma aldosterone levels, and enlarged size and weight of an heterogenous adrenal tumor with internal calcifications. Malignancy was confirmed by the histologic features. No prognostic criteria could be established and two patients died despite specific surgery, which was performed in all cases. More recent developments in the use of mitotane led to the addition of adrenocorticolytic therapy in the remaining two patients, who are still alive at the time of this report.