CASE REPORTS   

Minerva Endocrinologica 2006 September;31(3):233-45

Copyright © 2006 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English, Italian

Pituitary expansive adenoma. A report of a case and differential diagnosis

Russo A.

Department of Emergency Surgery Ospedale “Leopoldo Parodi Delfino” A.S.L., Rome

Notwithstanding recent neuroendocrinological and neuroradiological findings, about 40% of carriers of pituitary adenoma still reach clinical observation and, consequently, the surgeon, in the stage of suffering from extrasellar extension to a varying degree, especially when the volumetric growth of the lesion is not accompanied by a state of endocrine dysfunction which could benefit early identification. Once established, the symptomatology could point us to the site of the expansive process but not supply indications regarding the histotype whose recognition, apart from instrumental investigation with radiography and scintigraphy, must be verified directly with craniotomic or transphenoidal access. Like all neoplastic conditions, the prognostic impact of exeresis is conditioned by the stage of the disease which for non-secreting pituitary adenomas, such as that encountered in the sixty-four-year-old woman observed by us, is about 70%.