Endocrine Abstracts

We present a case of severe malignant pheochromocytoma complicated with intestinal pseudo-obstruction, which was refractory to conventional therapies but reacted to intravenous administration of an α-blocker, phentolamine.Malignant pheochromocytoma typically metastasizes to bones, liver, lungs, and lymph nodes, and average 5-year survival rate in the patient with metastases is approximately 50%. Treatment options for malignant pheochromocytoma inclu...

Introduction: Pheochromocytoma (PHEO) is a rare tumor of chromaffin cells with variable clinical presentation. Adrenal PHEOs secrete excessive amounts of noradrenaline or of noradrenaline plus adrenaline, whereas extra-adrenal PHEOs (paragangliomas) mostly secrete noradrenaline alone due to lack of expression of phenylethanolamine-N-methyltransferase (PNMT), the key enzyme converting noradrenaline into adrenaline. We report two exceptional cases of paragangliomas responsible f...