Authors
Rahul Jain, Alec Dallas, Hongzhi Xu, Omar Shwaiki, Elias Salloum, Wei Lue Tong
Published in
Radiology case reports. Volume 21. Issue 11. Pages 5306-5313. Epub Aug 13, 2026.
Abstract
Ectopic adrenal cortical adenoma within the kidney is an extremely rare condition that can closely resemble renal cell carcinoma on imaging, especially when occurring in the context of adrenal-renal fusion with a normal native adrenal gland. We present 2 cases of small, enhancing renal masses initially suspected to be malignant based on imaging characteristics. In the first case, CT-guided percutaneous biopsy and microwave ablation were performed, and diagnosis of adrenal-renal fusion was made post procedure upon further histopathologic analysis. In the second case, laparoscopic partial nephrectomy was performed due to suspicion of malignancy, and pathology revealed identical features of an ectopic adrenal cortical adenoma directly fused to renal tissue without a capsule. These cases highlight the importance of understanding the embryologic origin of ectopic adrenal tissue and adrenal-renal fusion, emphasize their radiologic similarity to primary renal tumors, and demonstrate the crucial role of histopathologic confirmation in guiding treatment decisions. Importantly, our findings show that image-guided biopsy can establish a benign diagnosis and enable minimally invasive treatment in selected patients, potentially preventing unnecessary interventions. On follow-up, the ablated patient had no evidence of residual renal lesion on MRI obtained 8 months after treatment. The surgically treated patient has remained without evidence of malignancy, requiring no further oncologic follow-up imaging given the benign pathology.
PMID:
42622011
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 20 Aug 2026.
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