Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Acute adrenal failure secondary to bilateral infarction of the adrenal glands as the first manifestation of primary antiphospholipid antibody syndrome
  1. I MARIE,
  2. H LEVESQUE,
  3. F HERON,
  4. N CAILLEUX,
  5. J Y BORG,
  6. H COURTOIS
  1. Département de Médecine Interne, CHU Rouen-Boisguillaume, 76031 Rouen Cedex, France
  1. Dr I Marie.

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Adrenal insufficiency is an uncommon, life threatening complication of the primary antiphospholipid antibody syndrome (PAPS), secondary to either adrenal haemorrhage or infarction.1-6Adrenal failure more often follows other PAPS thromboembolic manifestations, and has to be clearly differentiated from other PAPS abdominal emergencies, including mesenteric and hepatic infarction.1 ,3-5 The pathological mechanisms involved are still not clearly understood, but the hypercoagulable state in patients with PAPS supports the concept that adrenal haemorrhagic infarction may possibly be related to adrenal vein thrombosis.7 We recently observed a new case, which is of particular interest as the patient developed an acute adrenal failure, revealing bilateral adrenal infarction, as a first manifestation of the PAPS.

A 70 year old patient presented with diffuse abdominal pain persisting for 15 days. He had …

View Full Text