- Title
- Adrenalectomy in regional Australia
- Creator
- Tree, Kevin; Buckland, Benjamin; Drane, Andrew; Crozier, Jack; Simon, Rob; Low, Kenny
- Relation
- ANZ Journal of Surgery Vol. 95, Issue 1-2, p. 8-11
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ans.19291
- Publisher
- John Wiley & Sons
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2025
- Description
- Adrenalectomy is performed for functional tumours or malignancy 1,2 but a low incidence of significant pathology means adrenalectomy is rare, but growing in prevalence due to radiological advances in diagnoses,3 with 1008 adrenalectomies in Australia 2022–2023,4 a 58% increase up from 639 ten years prior. Pheochromocytomas are rare neoplasms of the sympathetic nervous system often derived from the adrenal medulla, 5 with functional pheochromocytoma requiring multidisciplinary assessment to prevent peri-operative cardiovascular complications.6 The British Association of Endocrine and Thyroid Surgeons7 recommend a minimum of 6 adrenalectomies per year for a surgeon, with at least 2 capable surgeons within a health service. In our regional health service, despite not meeting this volume threshold, we had appropriate staff, specialties and infrastructure for complete multi-disciplinary peri-operative assessment and management. A 16 year retrospective audit identified 31 patients (<2/year) (Table 1) who underwent adrenalectomy in the Northern NSW Local Health District (NNSWLHD) geographically classified as Modified Monash Model 38 with a catchment area of 20 732 km2 and population of 304 857. Five patients with pheochromocytoma were operated on with no complications or mortality, with functional blockade performed and no associated cardiovascular morbidity.
- Subject
- adrenalectomy; Australia; diagnoses; tumours
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1519713
- Identifier
- uon:57425
- Identifier
- ISSN:1445-1433
- Language
- eng
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