With the steep increase in the use of cross-sectional imaging in recent years, the
incidentally detected adrenal lesion, or "incidentaloma", has become an increasingly
common diagnostic problem for the radiologist, and a need for an approach to
classifying these lesions as benign, malignant or indeterminate with imaging has
spurred an explosion of research. While most incidentalomas represent benign disease,
typically an adenoma, the possibility of malignant involvement of the adrenal gland
necessitates a reliance on imaging to inform management decisions. In this article,
we review the literature on adrenal gland imaging, with particular emphasis on
computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and photon-emission tomography, and
discuss how these findings relate to clinical practice. Emerging technologies, such
as contrast-enhanced ultrasonography, dual-energy computed tomography, and magnetic
resonance spectroscopic imaging will also be briefly addressed.