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After Adrenal Cancer Treatment
For some people with adrenal cancer, treatment can remove or destroy the cancer. Completing treatment can be both stressful and exciting. People might be relieved to finish treatment but find it hard not to worry about cancer coming back.
For other people, the cancer might never go away completely. They might get regular treatments to help control the cancer. Learning to live with cancer that does not go away can be difficult, but many people find ways to manage their health and maintain a good quality of life.
For information about neuroblastoma, see After Neuroblastoma Treatment.
Follow-up care
During and after treatment, it’s very important to go to all your follow-up appointments. During these visits, your care team will watch for signs of adrenal cancer growing or coming back, as well as any side effects of the treatments you’ve had.
Talk with your doctor about developing a survivorship care plan for you. This plan can guide your next steps after treatment, including follow-up appointments and ways to stay healthy.
What’s usually in a survivorship care plan?
A survivorship plan might include:
- A summary of the diagnosis, tests done, and treatments given
- A suggested schedule for follow-up exams and tests
- A schedule for other tests you might need in the future, such as tests to look for long-term health effects from your cancer or its treatment
- A list of possible late or long-term side effects from your treatment, including what to watch for and when to contact your healthcare team
- Diet and physical activity suggestions
- Reminders to see your primary care doctor (PCP) for routine healthcare and cancer screening
What to expect at follow-up visits
Follow-up visits often include careful physical exams and tests such as blood work to check hormone levels or imaging. How often you follow up with your care team will depend on your cancer, its response to treatment, and other factors.
For example, almost any cancer treatment can have side effects. Some might last only a short time, but others can last longer or might not happen until months or years later. It’s important to report any new symptoms to your care team right away, so that they can find a cause and treat them if needed.
If you are still taking mitotane, you might need more frequent follow-up visits. Your doctor will check the level of mitotane in your blood and watch for side effects.
Mitotane can affect how well hormones are made by your remaining adrenal gland and pituitary gland. As a result, you might need to take hormone replacement medicines.
Questions to ask your care team
- Are there any limits on what I can do?
- What kind of diet and exercise should I do now?
- What type of follow-up will I need after treatment?
- How often will I need to have follow-up exams, blood work, and imaging tests?
- What late effects should I watch for?
- How will we know if the cancer comes back? What should I watch for?
- What will my options be if the cancer comes back?
Staying prepared and organized
Even after treatment is finished, it’s very important to keep your health insurance. Tests and doctor visits cost a lot, and even though no one wants to think their cancer might come back, this could happen.
At some point after your treatment, you might find yourself seeing a new doctor who doesn’t know about your medical history. It’s important to keep copies of your medical records so you can give your new doctor the details of your diagnosis and treatment. Learn more in Keeping Copies of Important Medical Records.
Late and long-term effects of treatment
People who are treated for adrenal cancers can be at risk for several health problems after treatment.
It’s important to ask your cancer care team what health problems you might have so you know what to watch for. The earlier problems are recognized, the more likely they can be treated. Your risk will depend on a few factors, including the types and doses of treatments you received.
Practice healthy behaviors such as not smoking, eating well, getting regular physical activity, and staying at a healthy weight. Doing this can help prevent long-term health problems.
The adrenal glands make hormones that control metabolism and help the body respond to stress.
Adrenal surgery and certain medications, such as mitotane, can affect the body’s ability to make cortisol, a stress and metabolism hormone. This leads to a condition called adrenal insufficiency.
Symptoms of adrenal insufficiency include low energy, weakness, trouble maintaining weight, low blood pressure, and more severe illnesses. However, low cortisol can be treated with medication.
In some cases adrenal cancer can’t be completely removed. When this happens, the tumor may continue to make extra hormones like cortisol, sex hormones, aldosterone, or catecholamines. This might cause changes in hair growth, high blood pressure, or other health problems. If extra hormones remain after treatment, hormone therapy may be needed. See Signs and Symptoms of Adrenal Cancer.
Depending on your cancer type and its treatment, your care team will watch for signs and symptoms of a second cancer.
Second cancers are more likely in people treated with certain types of therapy, such as radiation, or in people who have an inherited gene change that caused their cancer.
People who were young when adrenal cancer was diagnosed have an increased risk of having a family cancer syndrome. For example, Li-Fraumeni syndrome is a family cancer syndrome associated with adrenal cancers at young ages. This syndrome is also associated with other cancers, such as breast cancer, bone and soft tissue sarcoma, brain tumors, and acute leukemia.
Men treated with mitotane might develop low testosterone. This can be treated with testosterone replacement, which is usually prescribed by an endocrinologist. Testosterone levels can return to normal when mitotane treatment is finished.
Some women treated with mitotane can develop ovarian cysts. Not much is known about the safety of mitotane during pregnancy, so doctors recommend using birth control methods while taking the medication.
Mitotane is not known to affect fertility. Other treatments like cyclophosphamide, cisplatin, or radiation affecting the ovaries can affect fertility after treatment.
Thyroid hormone levels can be affected by mitotane and are usually monitored with blood tests. If the levels are low and you have symptoms, medication can be used to treat it. Thyroid hormone levels usually return to normal after treatment is finished.
Certain chemo medicines such as doxorubicin or mitotane can impact heart health.
Doxorubicin, an anthracycline chemo medicine, can cause heart problems later in life. Depending on how much doxorubicin you are treated with, heart tests like an echocardiogram might be done to check the strength of your heart muscle.
Mitotane can cause high cholesterol, which can clog the blood vessels of the heart. Medication might be recommended to lower your cholesterol level if it is elevated. Oftentimes cholesterol levels return to normal when mitotane is no longer needed.
Certain chemo drugs such as cisplatin and carboplatin can cause damage to the kidneys. Your care team might check your kidney health with blood and urine tests periodically.
If the cancer comes back
If the cancer does come back (recur) at some point, treatment options will depend on where it is, what treatments you’ve had before, and your overall health. For more information on how recurrent cancer is treated, see Treatment Choices by Type and Stage of Adrenal Cancers.
For more general information on recurrence, you might also want to see Understanding Recurrence.
Social and emotional health after cancer
Some amount of feeling depressed, anxious, or worried is normal when cancer is a part of your life.
Some feelings might last a long time and can include:
- Dealing with physical changes that happen because of treatment
- Worrying about the cancer returning or new health problems developing
- Being treated differently or discriminated against by friends, partners, coworkers, employers, and others
You might also feel:
- Resentful for having had cancer
- Resentful for going through treatment when others didn’t have to
- Guilty for surviving cancer when other friends with cancer did not
If your feelings are getting in the way of your daily life, consider reaching out for support. The American Cancer Society is here to help. The National Cancer Information Center is available 24/7 at 1-800-227-2345 to discuss support resources in your community.
More resources
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- References
Developed by the American Cancer Society medical and editorial content team with medical review and contribution by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
Kratz CP, Achatz MI, Brugières L, et al. Cancer Screening Recommendations for Individuals with Li-Fraumeni Syndrome. Clin Cancer Res. 2017;23(11):e38-e45.
Rock CL, Thomson C, Gansler T, et al. American Cancer Society guideline for diet and physical activity for cancer prevention. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. 2020;70(4).
Sanford T, Gomella PT, Siddiqui R, et al. Long term outcomes for patients with von Hippel-Lindau and Pheochromocytoma: defining the role of active surveillance. Urol Oncol. 2021;39(2):134.e1-134.e8.
Torresan F, Beber A, Schiavone D, et al. Long-Term Outcomes after Surgery for Pheochromocytoma and Sympathetic Paraganglioma. Cancers (Basel). 2023;15(11):2890. Published 2023 May 24.
Yeoh P, Czuber-Dochan W, Aylwin S, Sturt J. Lived experience of people with adrenocortical carcinoma and associated adrenal insufficiency. Endocrinol Diabetes Metab. 2022;5(4):e341.
Last Revised: October 5, 2026
American Cancer Society medical information is copyrighted material. For reprint requests, please see our Content Usage Policy.
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