Elsevier

World Neurosurgery

Volume 117, September 2018, Pages 122-128
World Neurosurgery

Literature Review
Diagnosis, Therapy, and Therapeutic Effects in Cases of Pituitary Metastasis

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wneu.2018.05.205Get rights and content
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open access

Highlights

  • Pituitary metastasis is rare in clinical work, and we collected 10 cases.

  • We performed a literature review to summarize the characteristics of pituitary metastasis.

  • We are following the patients after surgery to know their prognosis.

Objective

This study aimed to summarize the diagnosis, therapy, and prognosis of pituitary metastasis.

Methods

Ten patients from the Department of Neurosurgery of the Peking Union Medical College Hospital from April 1997 to August 2014 were retrospectively analyzed.

Results

The participants included 7 males (70%) and 3 females (30%), with an average age of 60.4 years. The most common initial clinical feature was visual disability (50%). The postoperative pathology reports indicated 1 case (10%) of metastatic large-cell pulmonary carcinoma, 2 cases (20%) of metastatic small cell pulmonary carcinoma, 2 cases (20%) of clear cell renal carcinoma metastasis, and 5 cases (50%) of metastasis of adenocarcinomas from different areas. All the patients underwent a thorough follow-up, and the average survival was 144 days.

Conclusions

Pituitary metastasis is a rare disease. Its diagnosis depends on the clinical manifestations and radiologic results. The primary therapeutic method is surgery and subsequent radiotherapy and chemotherapy; however, the prognosis of this disease is poor.

Key words

Diagnosis
Operation
Pituitary metastasis
Prognosis
Therapy

Abbreviations and Acronyms

CT
Computed tomography
MRI
Magnetic resonance imaging

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Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare that the article content was composed in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.