Not so incidental: Pheochromocytoma in an adult with unrepaired cyanotic heart disease

Abstract

Pheochromocytoma, a rare neuroendocrine tumour, is often encountered in the general internal medicine clinic as an adrenal incidentaloma. Even rarer is its presence in adult cyanotic heart disease, although there are a few documented reports of this association in various paediatric populations, with chronic hypoxia being the likely driving force. Here we present the case of a 38-year-old adult with unrepaired complex cyanotic congenital heart disease with biochemically proven pheochromocytoma presenting as an adrenal incidentaloma to a general internal medicine clinic.