What are the treatment options for adrenal cancer?

The adrenal glands sit above the kidneys and make hormones. Some adrenal tumours produce excess hormones, while others do not. Imaging and laboratory tests help show the tumour’s size, position, hormone activity and relationship to nearby structures. The care plan also depends on whether disease is confined to the adrenal gland or has reached other areas.

Surgery may remove the adrenal gland and the tumour, with nearby tissue or lymph nodes considered when needed. If hormone production is excessive, the team may first use medicines and monitoring to control its effects. Chemotherapy uses anti-cancer medicines throughout the body and may be used after surgery in selected situations, for disease that has returned or for disease that cannot be removed surgically.

Bring reports from scans and hormone tests to your specialist visit. Ask whether an endocrine specialist, surgeon and oncology team will plan treatment together. Discuss how surgery could affect hormone replacement, blood pressure, wound care and activity. Before chemotherapy, review infection precautions, fertility, other medicines and how side effects will be managed. Keep a record of symptoms such as new weakness, palpitations or changes in blood pressure.

Seek urgent medical help for severe headache, confusion, fainting, chest pain, marked weakness, repeated vomiting or severe abdominal pain. After surgery, urgent advice is needed for heavy bleeding, worsening breathlessness, a high fever or rapidly increasing pain. Hormone changes can affect blood pressure and body chemistry, so sudden deterioration should not wait for a routine review.

Does my tumour make hormones? Is surgery intended to remove all visible disease? Will I need hormone replacement afterward? What would make chemotherapy appropriate? Which symptoms should prompt urgent help, and how will scans and hormone tests monitor me?