And if you're a girl, the mammary glands in your breasts could someday make breast milk to feed a baby. Other glands release hormones (say: HOR-mones), which are substances inside your body that tell it how to work and how to grow. Glands that do this are part of the endocrine (say: EN-doh-krin) system.
The 2004 World Health Organization classification of endocrine tumors defines pheochromocytoma as a tumor arising from catecholamine-producing chromaffin cells in the adrenal medulla â an intra-adrenal paraganglioma. Closely related tumors of extra-adrenal paraganglia are classified as extra-adrenal paragangliomas.
Chromaffin cells rarely form abnormal masses, and even more rarely are those masses cancerous. But when cancer does develop, the condition is called malignant pheochromocytoma. If the pheochromocytoma develops outside the adrenal gland, the mass may be referred to as a paraganglioma. Pheochromocytoma symptoms: