Talk:Adrenal gland disorder

Why I re-wrote most of the article
The quality of this article was truly terrible. It contained incorrect information that could be misleading or even harmful to people seeking information on these conditions, and also had many grammar/readability issues.

Because most of the conditions mentioned in this article already had their own, much higher-quality, pages on Wikipedia, I have re-written this page to link to them with only a brief summary for each disorder on this page. I kept the “introduction” and “notable people” sections, since they were useful and not duplicated elsewhere. I have also added more adrenal gland disorders not mentioned in the original page (although this is still far from an exhaustive list).

Examples of incorrect information:

“Pheochromocytomas are found in a person’s body because he has inherited these from his parents.” (Odd wording, and not true – only about 10% of pheochromocytoma are hereditary.)

The entire treatment section is written as though all pheochromocytomas are cancerous – the vast majority are not. Even in cases where a pheochromocytoma is cancerous, chemotherapy is NOT an alternative to removal of the tumor, because the tumor still has the potential to cause life-threatening spikes in blood pressure.

“Depression, alcoholism, malnutrition, and panic disorders all increase levels of cortisol. This increases the chances of getting Cushing's syndrome.” (Although the disorders named may involve smaller increases in cortisol levels, they cannot cause or increase the risk of Cushing's syndrome.)

“On the first day of the scan, a radiopharmaceutical is injected into the patient. On the second, third, and fourth day, the camera scans the pelvis, lower abdomen, and lower chest.” (Most adrenal CT scans, even with contrast, are completed in under two hours, not as a multi-day process. The article referenced after that statement says nothing about multi-day scans.)

Examples of grammatical/readability issues:

“Pheochromocytoma is a tumor of special cells that arises inside the “adrenal glands’ chromaffin cells”.” (Pheochromocytoma is a tumor consisting of chromaffin cells, not “special cells within the adrenal gland's chromaffin cells”)

Under Cushing's syndrome - “An overproduction of corticotrophin, the hormone that controls the adrenal gland by the pituitary gland, which stimulates the adrenal glands to produce the corticosteroids, could be of one cause.”

CarbonylCat (talk) 21:40, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Merge/diffuse and revamp
Every disease in this article already has its own article; see Pheochromocytoma, Cushing's syndrome, Pituitary adenoma, Hyperaldosteronism and Addison's disease. There's some good info in here that can be merged into the correct article, but the sections on each of those diseases is much too long for summary style. I'm not proposing deleting this page, not at all. The general information is good, and especially about the scans (though it needs to be renamed and significantly improved...). — Skittleys (talk) 02:24, 14 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose merge Sometimes it is useful to have an article that gives general information on diseases/disorders of a particular organ. Immunize (talk) 13:46, 10 April 2010 (UTC)