Radiologic Differentiation of Adrenal Lesions and Its Impact on Patient Management

Adrenal lesions are a relatively common incidental finding and are estimated to be present in 4.4% of all abdominal CT scans.1 The detection of an adrenal lesion often necessitates a thorough clinical evaluation that frequently requires a comprehensive patient history, biochemical studies, and radiologic studies such as dedicated adrenal protocol CT or MRI. The primary goal of additional radiologic studies is to differentiate benign from malignant adrenal lesions. It is, therefore, important for the radiologist to be familiar with a variety of benign and malignant adrenal lesions and to recognize distinctive imaging characteristics that can help make this distinction. This article reviews typical and useful imaging features of more commonly encountered benign and malignant adrenal lesions.