What are the causes and prevalence of clinically inapparent adrenal masses?
The pathologies found among adrenal incidentaloma are well known and include adrenal adenoma, pheochromocytomas, metastases of primary cancers to the adrenal gland, adrenocortical carcinomas, and benign lesions such as myelolipomas and adrenal cysts. Additional pathologies include: adrenal cyst, adrenal hyperplasia, angiomyelolipoma, ganglioneuroma, hematoma, hemorrhage, lymphoma, malignant epithelial carcinoma, metastases, myelolipoma, neurinoma, regenerative hepatic nodule, renal angiomyolipoma, and retroperitoneal fibrosis. Because incidentaloma is not a disease entity, the prevalence of incidentaloma will vary with the definition applied. The prevalence of incidentaloma in the general healthy population is likely to be very low and higher when the imaging test is performed for specific indications. One study that used transabdominal US for general health examination reported 11 adrenal masses (verified clinically or with pathology) out of 41,357 subjects (prevalence 0.027 percent).
