Frequency of Thyroid Nodules and Autoimmune Thyroid Disease in Patients with Adrenal Incidentaloma

Objectives: To evaluate the clinical, laboratory, and radiological characteristics of patients with adrenal incidentaloma and to investigate the relationship between adrenal incidentaloma and autoimmune thyroid disease.
Methods: This retrospective study included 66 patients diagnosed with adrenal incidentaloma between December 2018 and February 2019. Demographic characteristics, hormonal status, radiological findings, metabolic comorbidities, and thyroid ultrasonography findings were evaluated. Autoimmune thyroid disease was assessed according to thyroid autoantibody positivity and thyroid parenchymal heterogeneity.
Results: The mean age was 56.2±7.9 years, and 77.3% of the patients were female. Overall, 83.3% of the patients were overweight or obese. Hypertension (29.5%), diabetes mellitus (21.4%), and hyperlipidemia (13.4%) were the most com-mon comorbidities. Nonfunctioning adrenal adenoma was detected in 83.3% of patients. Thyroid nodules were sig-nificantly more frequent in patients with functioning adrenal adenoma than in those with nonfunctioning adenoma (90.9% vs. 56.4%, p=0.04). No significant association was found between hormonal activity and thyroid autoantibody positivity or thyroid parenchymal heterogeneity.
Conclusion: Functioning adrenal adenoma may be associated with increased thyroid nodule frequency; however, no relationship was demonstrated between adrenal hormonal activity and autoimmune thyroid disease.

Keywords: Adrenal incidentaloma, autoimmune thyroid disease, thyroid nodule