RESUMO
A 45-year-old woman visited a local clinic with left-flank abdominal pain. Abdominal computed tomography (CT) revealed a tumor 20 cm in diameter in the left adrenal gland. She was referred to our hospital for further treatment. No endocrinological abnormality was detected on either serum or urine examination. CT and haematology findings led to a preoperative diagnosis of primary adrenal carcinoma, and we performed a left adrenalectomy. Histopathological examination revealed a paraganglioma with intact adrenal gland. Therefore we diagnosed this case as primary retroperitoneal paraganglioma. Six months after the surgery, she developed peritoneal dissemination including bilateral ovarian metastases. After cytoreductive metastasectomy, she received 131I-meta-iodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) radiotherapy. During the following five-year follow-up, MIBG radiotherapy in conjunction with cytoreductive metastasectomy (3 surgeries and 6 sessions of 131I-MIBG radiotherapy) was performed, aiming at disease control. Five years after the initial surgery, liver, lung, and intra-peritoneal dissemination progressed. Thereafter, she developed severe diarrhea, hypokalemia, and metabolic acidosis with an elevated level of vasoactive intestional peptide, which was consistent with water diarrhea, hypokalemia, achlorhydria (WDHA) syndrome. Despite intensive treatments such as with a somatostatin analogue, she died two months after the onset of this syndrome.
