Treatment of adrenal tumours
Adrenal cortical carcinoma
Adrenal cortical carcinoma is a malignant tumour of the adrenal gland arising from the outer layer of the gland known as the adrenal cortex. It is a very rare tumour (1 to 2 cases per year per million of the population).
Phaeochromocytoma
Phaeochromocytomas are tumours of the chromaffin tissue located in the adrenal medulla. When these tumours arise from chromaffin tissue in sympathetic ganglia outside the adrenal, they are usually known as paragangliomas.
Phaeochromocytomas are rare (less than 1 case per 100,000 of the population). In the large majority of cases they are benign tumours which are cured by surgical excision. Only 10% of phaeochromocytomas are malignant and thus liable to spread beyond the adrenal, to metastasise and to recur.
Gustave Roussy, referral centre
In France, the majority of adrenal tumour cases are treated in the INCA COMETE network of centres, within which Gustave Roussy is a referral centre.
Management at the Institute relies on a number of specific therapeutic approaches: surgery, metabolic irradiation therapy (nuclear medicine), chemotherapy, targeted molecular therapy, radiotherapy, radiofrequency ablation, chemo-embolisation and other local and regional measures. These anti-cancer treatments may be administered privately outside the Institute or in the Day Hospital or in the Department of Nuclear Medicine and Endocrine Cancer.
