Abstract
Catecholamine excess from pheochromocytoma results in cardiovascular symptoms such
as arterial hypertension and tachycardia and induces metabolic alterations including
glucose intolerance and increase in resting metabolic rate. The objective of our study
was to investigate the effect of surgical cure of pheochromocytoma on body-mass-index
and the correlation of body-mass-index changes to preoperative endocrine parameters.
Pheochromocytoma patients from the Munich ENSAT Registry were matched (1:2) for age
and gender to patients from the German Conn’s Registry, who had undergone surgery
for aldosterone-producing-adenomas. Thereby, 43 pheochromocytoma patients (17 males/26
females) and 86 aldosterone-producing-adenoma patients were analyzed for body-mass-index,
blood pressure, and catecholamine levels before and one year after adrenalectomy.
Seventy-four percent of pheochromocytoma patients were hypertensive preoperatively
and 48% one year postoperatively. Systolic blood pressure did not differ significantly
in pre- and postoperative measurements whereas diastolic blood pressure was significantly
reduced over time. Moreover, pheochromocytoma patients gained body weight (p<0.001)
one year following adrenalectomy accompanied by significant increases in body-mass-index,
whereas aldosterone-producing adenoma patients displayed a slight weight loss. Despite
weight gain, diagnosis of diabetes mellitus dropped from 9 of 43 investigated pheochromocytoma
patients at baseline to 4 at follow-up. A significant correlation between body-mass-index
changes to the preoperative catecholamine levels was found only for urinary normetanephrines.
These data suggest that normalization of chronic catecholamine excess by adrenalectomy
is associated with an increase in body-mass-index, which is more pronounced in patients
with high preoperative levels of urinary normetanephrines.
Key words
body mass index - adrenalectomy - catecholamines - pheochromocytoma
