Symptoms of adrenal tumors in women

Many diseases do not have obvious symptoms in the early stages, so they are often ignored by people, which will seriously affect the best treatment of the disease. For example, for serious diseases such as adrenal adenoma, if people can detect and treat them early, the damage will be minimized.

1. Aldosteronism

The majority of patients with this disease are women. From 1980 to the end of 1998, the outpatient department of the Cancer Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences received 48 cases, including 30 females and 18 males, with an age range of 12 to 74 years. Most patients are obese but their limbs are not fat. That is what is called "central obesity". Bald head, round face, the so-called "full moon face" with dark red dull color and scars, more fat behind the neck and under the shoulders, like a "buffalo hump", thin skin, much hair, purple lines under the armpits, lower abdomen, and thighs. Most patients have high blood pressure and complain of general fatigue and pain in the waist and legs. Female patients have typical symptoms such as poor speech, amenorrhea or menstrual disorders, and osteoporosis.

2. Aldosteronism

The main reason is that the increased blood volume and potassium ion increase leads to increased vascular resistance, which is the most important or earliest symptom of the disease. Blood pressure is elevated to moderate or slightly severe levels. Malignant hypertension may occur in children and adolescents, with the maximum pressure being 34.5/20.5 kPa. General antihypertensive drugs are ineffective. There is also normotensive primary aldosteronism, in which the system is unclear. High blood pressure and high blood sodium often lead to symptoms such as dizziness, headache, fatigue, decreased vision, irritability, and dry mouth.

The muscle weakness and paralysis caused by hypokalemia make the patient feel heavy on the upper body and light on the lower body, with weakness in the limbs, which is more obvious in the lower limbs. In severe cases, periodic paralysis may occur. Hypokalemia causes arrhythmia, cerebral hypoxia syndrome, and polyuria, frequent urination caused by renal dysfunction. When it affects the pancreas, blood sugar increases.

Alkali poisoning eventually leads to chlorite deficiency, resulting in numbness of the right extremities, pain in the limbs, and muscle cramps.

3. Abnormal adrenaline symptoms

Abnormal adrenaline sexual characteristics are specifically manifested in the transformation of female patients into male patients. The so-called gender change is only a change in the appearance of the sex organs. The actual gender remains unchanged because the sex hormones and chromosomes that determine their gender remain unchanged. Therefore, the so-called "female pseudohermaphroditism" that occurs in the fetus is different from true hermaphroditism. The latter has both uterine ovaries and testicles. Such cases are very rare. When a female with pseudohermaphroditism is born, her clitoris and labia majora are like the genitals of a male baby with congenital hypospadias. The author has seen an untreated female whose appearance and voice are like those of a boy, with dark skin, thick hair, and taciturnity. Her clitoris is like the male genitals and can become erect, and her labia majora are like the scrotum. The urethral opening is the opening of the urogenital sinus. The abnormal sexual characteristics of male babies in the fetal period are manifested as large genitals, which then grow and develop rapidly. The physical fitness and genitals of 4-5 year old children are of adult size. For patients who are born normal and develop the disease in early puberty, the cause of the disease is often adrenocortical tumors. The clinical symptoms are: loss of body fat, masculine physical characteristics, clitoral hypertrophy, deep voice, smaller breasts and uterus, cessation of menstruation, and decreased libido.

4. Pheochromocytoma

The disease mostly occurs in young people aged 20 to 40, with the ratio of males to females being basically the same. Its clinical symptoms are high blood pressure and changes in metabolic rate: hypertension can be paroxysmal or persistent, or persistent high blood pressure can worsen intermittently. Persistent patients usually experience dizziness, headache, chest tightness, shortness of breath, chest pain, rapid heartbeat, blurred vision, nervousness, anxiety, fear of cold, etc. The patient suddenly has headache, nausea, palpitations, chest tightness, pale face, heavy sweating, and difficulty breathing, and the patient feels like he is about to die. If the blood pressure reaches 45 kPa (200-300 mmHg) at this time, it may decrease spontaneously after about 30 minutes. After restoration, he is just like a normal person. Then encounter some kind of stimulation and the disease will recur. Gradually, the frequency of onset became more frequent, the observation period was shortened, and the condition became more serious. The irritation of the disease is not necessarily very obvious. Some people may wake up with fright, sweat, or feel like they are dying when they are rinsing their mouth or brushing their teeth or in their dreams. There are also people with extremely large tumors and high blood pressure who have never developed any symptoms, or who have no lumps or diseases and have died during surgery for other diseases. Therefore, patients with such symptoms should be examined and treated as soon as possible.