Adrenocortical carcinoma  (ACC) is an aggressive cancer originating in the cortex (steroid hormone-producing tissue) of the adrenal gland. Adrenocortical carcinoma is remarkable for the many hormonal syndromes that can occur in patients with steroid hormone-producing ("functional") tumors, including Cushings syndrome, Conn syndrome, virilization, and feminization. Adrenocortical carcinoma has often invaded nearby tissues or metastasized to distant organs at the time of diagnosis, and the overall 5-year survival rate is about 50%.Adrenocortical carcinoma is a rare tumor, with incidence of one to two per million population annually. It has a bimodal distribution by age, with cases clustering in children under 5 and in adults 30–40 years old. The widely used angiotensin-II-responsive steroid-producing cell line H295R was originally isolated from a tumor diagnosed as adrenocortical carcinoma. Signs and symptoms
Adrenocortical carcinoma may present differently in children and adults. Most tumors in children are functional, and virilization is by far the most common presenting symptom(s), followed by Cushings syndrome and precocious puberty. Among adults presenting with hormonal syndromes, Cushings syndrome alone is most common, followed by mixed Cushings and virilization (glucocorticoid and androgen overproduction). Feminization and Conn syndrome (mineralocorticoid excess) occur in less than 10% of cases. Rarely, pheochromocytoma-like hypersecretion of catecholamines has been reported in adrenocortical cancers. Nonfunctional tumors (about 40%, authorities vary) usually present with abdominal or flank pain, varicocele, and renal vein thrombosis or they may be asymptomatic and detected incidentally.All patients with suspected ACC should be carefully evaluated for signs and symptoms of hormonal syndromes.
Myelokathexis is a congenital disorder of the white blood cells that causes severe, chronic leukopenia (a reduction of circulating white blood cells) and neutropenia (a reduction of neutrophil granulocytes). The disorder is believed to be inherited in an autosomal dominant manner. Myelokathexis refers to retention (kathexis) of neutrophils in the bone marrow (myelo). The disorder shows prominent neutrophil morphologic abnormalities.Myelokathexis is amongst the diseases treated with bone marrow transplantation and cord blood stem cells. WHIM syndrome is a very rare variant of severe congenital neutropenia that presents with warts, hypogammaglobunemia, infections, and myelokathexis. A gain-of-function mutation resulting in a truncated form of CXCR4 is believed to be its cause. The truncated form of the receptor has a 2-fold increase in G-protein coupled intracellular signalling, and this mutation of the receptor can be identified by DNA sequencing. See also
WHIM syndrome

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