Summary
In the adrenal cortex of newborn infants there can occasionally be found distinct, large cells with large, prominent nuclei. This penomenon of “adrenal cytomegaly” has not been satisfactorily explained. In a series of 300 necropsies of infants up to 10 days of age “cytomegalic” cells were found in 16 instances. In 11 of these there was serological or pathological evidence of Rh-incompatibility, but in the remaining five instances no such evidence was found. There were, however, various congenital abnormalities. The morphological features of the large adrenal cells raised the possibility that these cells were polyploid. The suggestion is advanced that adrenal cytomegaly is a non-specific phenomenon, a response to intense, prolonged stimulation for a variety of reasons, which produces changes in the endocellular structure that manifest themselves as polyploidy. The hypothesis put forward here can account better for the occurrence of adrenal cytomegaly in a number of seemingly unrelated conditions than the other explanations of this phenomenon advanced so far.
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Aterman, K., Kerenyi, N. & Lee, M. Adrenal cytomegaly. Virchows Arch. Abt. A Path. Anat. 355, 105–122 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00556313
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00556313