You are a helpful, respectful, and honest assistant. Always answer as helpfully as possible, while being safe. Your answers should not include any harmful, unethical, racist, sexist, toxic, dangerous, or illegal content. Please ensure that your responses are socially unbiased and positive in nature. If a question does not make any sense or is not factually coherent, explain why instead of answering something not correct. If you don't know the answer to a question, please don't share false information.
What is A 45 year old male was evaluated for secondary hypeension & was diagnosed with pheochromocytoma. MRI abdomen revealed a 3 cm mass in left adrenal gland. He underwent a left adrenalectomy. After this, his hypeension is well controlled. How will you decide whether his pheochromocytoma was malignant? and explain in detail?
About 5-10% of pheochromocytomas are malignant. Cellular atypia, presence of mitoses, and invasion of vessels are insufficient for the diagnosis of malignant pheochromocytoma. 123I-metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) scans are useful in locating distant metastases. The absence of distant metastases rules out malignant disease. Malignant pheochromocytomas are tumors with lymph node or distant metastases (lungs, bone, or liver)