What Is Adrenal Carcinoma?

It may not seem like it, but your body constantly changes from one moment to the next. A tweak here to lower your blood sugar, a boost there to increase your blood flow. It’s a complex balancing act to give each part of your body exactly what’s needed, whether you’re baking a cake or running a marathon.

Your adrenal glands, one on each kidney, help in this process by making hormones, which are messengers that tell your organs what they need to do next. They control everything from your blood pressure to your mood.

When you have adrenal carcinoma (also called adrenal cancer or adrenocortical cancer) you have a cancerous tumor in your adrenal cortex. This is the outer part of your adrenal gland. Adrenal carcinoma is rare. Your doctors may be able to cure it if you catch it early. But it’s aggressive. That means it spreads quickly, and if it moves beyond the adrenal gland it’s much harder to treat.

Doctors aren’t sure what causes adrenal cancer. It starts with a change in the genes of some adrenal cells, but that change seems to happen at random.

It can run in families, so if anyone in your family has cancer in their adrenal glands or other parts of the endocrine system, tell your doctor. If you do get it, regular checkups can help you catch it early.

When you have a genetic condition, you have a defect in one or more genes. Some genetic conditions may give you higher odds of getting adrenal cancer:

Some tumors are functioning, meaning they overproduce one of the hormones normally made in the adrenal gland. Others are nonfunctioning, meaning they don’t make hormones. As they grow, both types of tumors can press on your organs and cause: