Diseases of the adrenal gland.

It is fortunate that the ability to diagnose the specific adrenal entities that mandate a surgical approach is extremely accurate. The combination of analytic methodology to measure the appropriate adrenocortical and medullary hormonal production and the radiologic techniques for localization are superb. The management of these adrenal disorders usually using a laparoscopic approach following localization is highly successful, resulting in a reversal of both metabolic abnormalities and the hypertension that often accompanies these diseases. Indeed, this is a true success story with the evolution of these different techniques over the past 50 years.