Question:medium
All are true about pheochromocytoma except?
All are true about pheochromocytoma except?
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Recall the rule of 10s and which percentage gets reversed here.
Updated On: Jun 24, 2026
- 90% are malignant
- 95% occur in the abdomen
- They secrete catecholamines
- They arise from sympathetic ganglions
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The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
This is a single-best-answer where three options are correct and one is false; the false one is the answer. Pheochromocytoma is a tumour of chromaffin tissue best remembered through the classic rule of 10s.
Apply the rule of 10s: approximately ten percent are malignant, ten percent bilateral, ten percent extra-adrenal, ten percent paediatric and ten percent familial. The direct consequence is that around ninety percent of these tumours behave in a benign fashion. So a claim that ninety percent are malignant inverts the true figure and is wrong.
Checking the remaining statements confirms them: about ninety five percent sit within the abdomen, mainly in the adrenal medulla; the tumour characteristically pours out catecholamines causing episodic hypertension, palpitations, sweating and headache; and it originates from chromaffin cells of the sympathetic chain. Since these three are true, the exception is the malignancy figure.
\[\boxed{\text{90% are malignant}}\]
Apply the rule of 10s: approximately ten percent are malignant, ten percent bilateral, ten percent extra-adrenal, ten percent paediatric and ten percent familial. The direct consequence is that around ninety percent of these tumours behave in a benign fashion. So a claim that ninety percent are malignant inverts the true figure and is wrong.
Checking the remaining statements confirms them: about ninety five percent sit within the abdomen, mainly in the adrenal medulla; the tumour characteristically pours out catecholamines causing episodic hypertension, palpitations, sweating and headache; and it originates from chromaffin cells of the sympathetic chain. Since these three are true, the exception is the malignancy figure.
\[\boxed{\text{90% are malignant}}\]
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