Abstract
Based on a cohort of patients (497 subjects) with hormonally inactive adrenal tumors, a retrospective analysis of incidentaloma variety, the frequency of their occurrence and some clinical characteristics has been conducted. In addition to the tumors of adrenal cortex and medulla, patients suffered from a wide variety of tumors of neurogenic origin, mesenchymal, non-specific tumors, and a number of tumor-like neoplasias. Women dominate among patients, and among them benign incidentalomas were reported more often, while among men malignant types dominated. The number of patients was progressively increasing with age, but after 60 their number was decreasing. A difference in age among male and female patients with benign tumors was not observed, whereas a number of malignant tumors in men were diagnosed much later than in women. The right localization of incidentalomas was registered for all benign tumors (except benign paragangliomas) and pheochromoblastomas, while other cancers, as well as non-specific and tumor-like neoplasias do not have asymmetry in their localization. According to the degree of increase in tumor size, there was the following series: cortex tumors = medulla tumors < tumor-like formations = mesenchymal tumors <neurogenic genesis tumors <non-specific tumors. An analysis of the distribution of benign and malignant incidentalomas as to their size suggested that tumor size could not be an objective criterion to decide on its malignant nature and, therefore, on the advisability (or not) of unconditional surgery.