title: Weiss criteria in large adrenocortical tumors: a validation study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Several systems including pathologic criteria alone or in combination with clinical features have been proposed to differentiate between benign and malignant adrenocortical tumors and assess their prognosis. The Weiss system appears to be the most commonly used method for assessing malignancy but there are only a few studies which have evaluated its diagnostic power. Since we see large adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC), we attempt to evaluate the diagnostic power of Weiss system in large ACC.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this study clinicopathological characteristics of 42 adrenocortical neoplasms are studied and classified into adrenocortical adenoma (ACA) and ACC based on Weiss score of less than or equal to three or greater than three.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The histological criteria of Weiss appeared to predict tumor prognosis accurately. Five year survival of patients with Weiss scores of less than or equal to three was 100% compared to 0% of those with Weiss scores greater than three. The average weights of ACA and ACC were 13.0 plus/minus 8.4 grams and 621.1 plus/minus 335.2 grams respectively; average sizes of ACA and ACC were 2.8 plus/minus 1.0 cmsand 13.6 plus/minus 3.7 cms respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Weiss score was found to be a good prognostic factor for tumors of the adrenal cortex.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, India.
authors.forename: Manoj
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jain
authors.forename: Shalini
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kapoor
authors.forename: Anand
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mishra
authors.forename: Sushil
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.forename: Amit
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Agarwal
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D018246:Adrenocortical Adenoma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology*; D018268:Adrenocortical Carcinoma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology*; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006651:Histocytochemistry / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D055815:Young Adult