Morphologic Changes of Adrenal Cortex in Disease

Stimulation of the adrenal cortex by the "stress" of illness is now taken for granted. Numerous publications have described changes in adrenal cortical histology in particular diseases, and at least one author' has attempted a general study of the adrenal cortex in an autopsy population. Even so little attention is paid the adrenal cortex in the average autopsy performed by the average pathologist. This is partly because such attention is relatively unrewarding. In spite of the numerous publications devoted to adrenal cortical histology, few are sufficiently well defined with respect to age, sex, race, and types and duration of disease present. Few provide sufficiently detailed data to serve as a frame of reference for the pathologist. They do not tell how much hypertrophy is to be expected in a given clinical situation, or how much to be considered extraordinary, nor do they tell when lipid depletion is the "normal" response, and when it is noteworthy. This paper is an attempt to provide sufficient data to make such assessment possible.