Malignant giant pheochromocytoma: a case report and review of the literature

Malignant pheochromocytoma is a rare disease and surgical resectionis the only curative treatment. There are no definitive histologicalor cytological criteria of malignancy, as it is impossible todetermine this condition in the absence of advanced locoregionaldisease or metastases. We report a case of a patient with a giantretroperitoneal tumour, the second largest to be published, whichwas diagnosed as a malignant pheochromocytoma; it was treatedwith surgery. The literature is reviewed to evaluate tumour featuresand criteria to distinguish between benign and malignantpheochromocytomas.