Case Reports Bilateral Adrenal Hypertrophy in Infancy

In 1940 Dijkhuizen and Behr drew attention to a condition they called 'adrenal hypertrophy in infants; a new clinical entity of the neonatal period'. They described three boys and a girl, all under three weeks of age, who fell ill with severe vomiting, suggestive of pyloric stenosis or other intestinal obstruction, all of whom died. Autopsies were performed on three, and in each case there was a great bilateral enlargement of the adrenal glands, but no sign of obstruction to the intestinal tract. It was claimed that this represented a new clinical entity or syndrome: severe vomiting in early infancy, associated with bilateral adrenal hypertrophy, and progressing to a fatal issue.