Objective: To summarize the disease distribution characteristics of adrenal lesions and analyze the changes of disease spectrum so as to further guide clinical practices.
Methods: All clinical data of adrenal lesion patients hospitalized between 1993 and 2013 were collected. Their profiles of gender ratio, visiting age, final diagnosis and year of hospitalization were retrospectively analyzed.
Results: A total of 4 049 patients with adrenal lesions were admitted. There were 2 004 males and 2 045 females with a mean age of 46.82 ± 13.36 years. The number of cases gradually increased year-on-year. And the visiting age was 30-60 years. The annual proportion of adrenal incidentaloma out of total adrenal lesions gradually increased with advancing age. Among them, 3 014 received endocrine function assessments. And there were non-functional lesions (n = 1 503, 49.88%) , adrenal Cushing's syndrome (n = 259, 8.60%), primary aldosteronism (n = 665, 22.04%) and pheochromocytoma (n = 235, 7.80%) . The proportion of non-functional lesions rose from 20.97% to 54.11% (P < 0.05). The proportion of primary aldsteronism declined from 29.84% to 20.43% (P < 0.05). And the proportion of adrenal Cushing syndrome changed slightly (P > 0.05). The proportion of pheochromocytoma declined from 18.55% to 6.99% (P < 0.05).
Conclusion: The number of patients gradually increased over the last two decades.So did the proportion of adrenal incidentaloma. The disease spectrum of adrenal lesions has changed. And the proportion of non-functional lesions increased while that of functional lesions declined.