La chirurgie d’épargne surrénalienne : du cortex à la médulla

The 2017 Endocrine Society annual meeting included several communications and debates on the conservative adrenal surgery in bilateral hereditary pheochromocytomas (BHP), bilateral adrenal macronodular hyperplasia (BAMH) and primary hyperaldosteronism (PHA). The general principle is to preserve a part of the adrenal cortex to prevent the occurrence of a definitive adrenal insufficiency. In BHP, cortical sparing surgery allows more than 50% of patients to maintain normal corticotropic function at 10 years with a low recurrence rate (~ 10%). Since the adrenal medulla cannot be removed entirely, recurrence seems inevitable and long-term follow-up is essential. Individual risk of malignancy must be taken into account. In BAMH responsible for Cushing syndrome, unilateral adrenalectomy induces a normalization of urinary free cortisol in 92 to 100% of cases and even corticotropic insufficiency in 40 to 100% of cases. This is most often transient. Late recurrences of Cushing's syndrome may occur in 13 to 60% of cases. Prolonged patient monitoring is therefore essential. In PAH with lateralized aldosterone production, minimally invasive partial adrenal surgery, which consists of removing only the adrenal adenoma visualized at TDM, allows an improvement blood pressure in about 94% of patients. However, failure or recurrence may occur. Its place therefore remains marginal in the treatment of the lateralized PAHs.