ABSTRACT
Many endocrine disorders of the adrenal gland, including primary aldosteronism, Cushing’s syndrome, and pheochromocytoma and malignant adrenal disease may be treated surgically with adrenalectomy (1). The large abdominal skin incision employed in past decades to achieve the large open surgical exposure-mandatory to perform adrenal surgery-was dictated by the anatomic characteristics of the adrenal, namely its retroperitoneal high location, small size, friability, and abundant delicate vascularity. For the same very anatomic reasons, minimally invasive approaches, including laparoscopic adrenalectomy, have found rather dramatic application in the field of adrenal surgery since their first description in the early 1990s by Gagner et al. (2)
Laparoscopic adrenalectomy has achieved established status and is increasingly performed at many institutions worldwide in the majority of patients with benign surgical adrenal disease (3).
