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A 46-year-old man had sudden onset of severe left hypochondrial pain and went into shock following hospitalization. Computed tomography, echocardiography, and endocrinological tests revealed spontaneous rupture of a pheochromocytoma associated with catecholamine cardiomyopathy. After he underwent conservative management with fluid replacement, his blood pressure stabilized and cardiac function improved. Twenty-two days later, he was referred to our hospital. After admission, as his circulatory dynamics was stable, we performed elective laparoscopic left adrenalectomy. He was discharged on the tenth postoperative day. Spontaneous rupture of a pheochromocytoma is very rare : laparoscopic surgery for this condition has been reported only on 2 previous occasions worldwide.

A 54-year-old man experienced sudden onset of severe pain in his left lower back. Because the pain persisted for two days, he visited our hospital. Abdominal computed tomography revealed a hematoma around his left kidney, which was diagnosed as spontaneous rupture of a renal tumor. He was immediately admitted and was scheduled to undergo elective surgery. However, because his hemoglobin level decreased suddenly on Day 9 and rebleeding from the renal tumor was suspected, we chose to perform left radical nephrectomy following emergency transcatheter arterial embolization of his left renal artery. The resected specimen was a solid brownish-red mass surrounded by hematoma, and the histopathological findings revealed that it was a renal clear cell carcinoma (G3>G2, INFα, pT1b, and pV0). On Day 51, he was found to have a local recurrence of carcinoma, and died five months after surgery. Spontaneous rupture of renal cell carcinoma is relatively rare : this is the 104th report on surgery for this carcinoma in Japan.