Familial Pheochromocytoma and Thyroid Carcinoma

Abstract

Two cases of familial pheochromocytoma and thyroid carcinoma, occurring in a mother and daughter, are presented. This is the seventeenth reported kindred with pheochromocytoma. The mother died during a hypertensive crisis accompanying attempted adrenalectomy 25 years ago, at the age of 32. No recurrence of the thyroid carcinoma removed 6 years earlier was found. The daughter presented in 1960, at age 30, with similar symptoms, but the diagnosis was not made because of the interpretation of the responses to histamine and cold pressor test and the patient''s obesity. Because of an enlarging thyroid nodule a subtotal thyroidectomy was performed which showed a medullary (solid) carcinoma with amyloid infiltration, which has previously been reported in association with familial pheochromocytoma. The thyroid also showed Hashimoto''s thyroiditis. Bilateral pheochromocytomas were subsequently removed with remission of symptoms, and return of urinary catecholamines and their metabolites to normal levels.