Surgical Management of Adrenal Tumors: Experience of Three Tertiary Hospitals in Yaounde, Cameroon

Abstract

Introduction: Surgical management of adrenal tumors has greatly improved over the past years, with laparoscopic adrenalectomy being the gold standard. However, Open adrenalectomy is indicated in large adrenal tumors, malignant tumors and large phaeochromocytomas. We report surgical outcomes of 18 cases of functional adrenal tumors from 2007 to 2022. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional and descriptive study in three tertiary hospitals in Yaounde, Cameroon. We reviewed files of patients who underwent adrenalectomy over a period of 15 years from July 2007 to July 2022. Clinical and diagnostic components of adrenal tumors, indications and surgical outcomes were analyzed. Results: A total of 18 patients were included in our study. The average age of patients was 38.33 years, with a female-to-male sex ratio of 2:1. Weight gain (72.2%) was the most represented clinical sign. The secretory nature of tumor and malignancy represented 55.5% and 33.3% of the operative indications and all 18 (100%) of the patients had open adrenalectomy. Vascular injury was the most common intraoperative complication with 5.63%, while acute adrenal insufficiency (16.7%) was the most common post-operative complication. The average tumor size was 6.22 cm and the mean duration of hospitalization was 11.61 days. Adenoma 7 (38.9%) and adrenocortical carcinoma 5 (27.8%) were the frequent histological types. One patient died two months post-surgery from anemia-related complications. Conclusion: The success of adrenal surgery is linked to multidisciplinary patient care and the experience of the surgeon. Conventional surgery still has indications with satisfactory short- and medium-term results in our context.