Growth hormone treatment can provide benefits in body composition, bone, and quality of life in adults with confirmed growth hormone deficiency.

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Evaluation and Treatment of Adult Growth Hormone Deficiency: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline

Objective: To formulate clinical practice guidelines for hormonal replacement in hypopituitarism in adults. Participants: The participants include an Endocrine Society-appointed Task Force of six experts, a methodologist, and a medical writer. The American Association for Clinical Chemistry, the Pituitary Society, and the European Society of Endocrinology co-sponsored this guideline. Evidence: The Task Force developed this evidence-based guideline using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation system to describe the strength of recommendations and the quality of evidence. The Task Force commissioned two systematic reviews and used the best available evidence from other published systematic reviews and individual studies. Consensus Process: One group meeting, several conference calls, and e-mail communications enabled consensus. Committees and members of the Endocrine Society, the American Association for Clinical Chemistry, the Pituitary Society, and the European Society of ...

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Hormonal replacement in hypopituitarism in adults: An endocrine society clinical practice guideline

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine (M.E.M.), Chicago, Illinois 60611; University of North Carolina School of Medicine (D.R.C.), Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599; National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Disease (S.M.), National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892; University of Washington, Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System (G.R.M.), Seattle and Tacoma, Washington 98493; Christie Hospital (S.M.S.), Manchester M20 4BX, United Kingdom; and University of Virginia Health Science Center (M.L.V.), Charlottesville, Virginia 22908

http://barbra-coco.dyndns.org/eiyou/team-diet/1621.full.pdf

CLINICAL PRACTICE GUIDELINE Evaluation and Treatment of Adult Growth Hormone Deficiency: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline

The transsphenoidal route is the most widely used technique for pituitary adenoma surgery due to its rapidity, good tolerance, effectiveness and low complication rate. These are the parameters we utilized in comparing endoscopic with microscopic transsphenoidal surgery. We reviewed the medical records of 418 patients affected by pituitary adenomas who underwent endoscopic transsphenoidal surgery between May 1998 and December 2004, and in this paper, we present the results of 381 patients who fulfilled the follow-up criteria after a minimum period of 15 months. Our experience confirms the previous data on the rapidity and satisfactory tolerance of the endoscopic procedure. We also confirm the low complication rate, specifying that complications characteristic of the approaching phase were certainly reduced; instead, complications characteristic of tumor removal still remained similar to those reported in the microsurgical literature. The results were comparable with those of the best microsurgical series regarding endosellar lesions, but tumor removal was notably superior when dealing with tumors having an extrasellar extension. The improvement may be explained by the excellent vision of the deep surgical fields due to the endoscope and by the extreme flexibility of the surgical trajectory, mainly due to the absence of the divaricator, giving access to the ramifications of the tumor, otherwise difficult to reach.

The Endoscopic versus the Traditional Approach in Pituitary Surgery

¶Introduction. The aim of this study was to define the impact of surgery on pituitary function in a large consecutive series of patients harbouring non-functioning pituitary adenomas.

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Impact of primary surgery on pituitary function in patients with non-functioning pituitary adenomas – a study on 721 patients

Surgery is the treatment of choice for many pituitary tumors; pituitary function may suffer after operation, but relief of pressure on the normal pituitary may also favor postoperative recovery of hypopituitarism. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of new appearance and recovery of hypopituitarism after neurosurgery and try to identify features associated with it. Pre- and postoperative anterior pituitary functions were investigated in 234 patients with pituitary adenomas (56 nonfunctioning, 71 PRL-secreting, 66 GH-secreting, 39 ACTH-secreting, 1 LH/FSH-secreting, and 1 TSH-secreting tumors). Eighty-eight new postoperative pituitary hypofunctions appeared in 52 patients (12 NF, 14 PRL-secreting, 15 GH-secreting, 10 ACTH-secreting, and 1 LH/FSH-secreting adenomas). They corresponded to 27% ACTH deficiencies (in 29 of the 107 patients with normal preoperative ACTH in whom postoperative evaluation was complete), 14.5% (15 of 103) new GH deficiencies, 10.5% (15 of 143; P < 0.0005, significantly less than ACTH deficiency) new TSH deficiencies, 16.5% (20 of 121) new gonadotropin deficiencies, and 13% (9 of 71) new PRL deficiencies. Preoperatively, 93 were deficient in at least 1 pituitary hormone; after surgery, 45 (48%) recovered between 1 and 3 hormones. The 2 patients with LH/FSH- and TSH-secreting macroadenomas did not recover pituitary function. Factors associated with a higher probability of postoperative pituitary function recovery were: no tumor rests on postoperative pituitary imaging (P = 0.001) and no neurosurgical (P = 0.001) or pathological evidence (P = 0.049) of an invasive nature. Tumor size did not differ significantly between those who did and those who did not recover pituitary function after surgery. Even if clear hypofunction is observed at initial work-up, patients should be reassessed after surgery without substitution therapy, because practically half the preoperative pituitary hormone deficiencies recover postoperatively, eliminating the need for life-long substitution therapy.

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Recovery of hypopituitarism after neurosurgical treatment of pituitary adenomas

Calcified cerebral hydatid cyst.

Pineal region meningiomas without dural attachment.

Objective: Neurosurgery is one of the main therapies for pituitary tumors; optimising outcome is highly desirable for the patient and the health system. We have analysed predictors of outcome in surgically treated pituitary adenomas operated in this centre. Design and patients: A total of 289 patients underwent neurosurgery for a pituitary tumor, by the same two neurosurgeons, between 1982 and 2001. Their records were examined to find predictors of post-surgical outcome. Thirty-eight percent were males, with a median age of 40.8 (8–82.7) yr; 51.9% had been operated since 1992, 92.2% by the transsphenoidal route. Most tumors (70.2%) were macroadenomas; 28.4% were non-functioning, 27.3% secreted PRL, 26.3% GH of which 14 (4.8%) also secreted PRL, 17.3% ACTH, 0.3% FSH and 0.3% TSH. Results: A stepwise, forward logistic regression analysis revealed tumor size as the only significant predictor of radiological cure [odds ratio (OR) for macroadenoma 0.16 vs microadenoma, p=0.0005]. Hormonally, PRL-secretion by the tumor was a predictor of poor prognosis (OR 3.29 for cure of non-PRL-secreting tumors, p=0.005), as was tumor size (OR 0.45 for cure of macroadenomas, p=0.005). Considering simultaneous radiological and hormonal remission, tumor size (OR 0.35 for macroadenoma, p=0.0002), and operation date (OR 0.40 for up to 1991, p=0.0002) were the only significant predictors. Conclusions: PRL secretion, tumor size and operation date are the main predictors of neurosurgical outcome in pituitary tumors, the latter suggesting that neurosurgical experience plays an important role.

B. Oliver

Papers

Recovery of hypopituitarism after neurosurgical treatment of pituitary adenomas

Calcified cerebral hydatid cyst.

Pineal region meningiomas without dural attachment.

Determinants of neurosurgical outcome in pituitary tumors

Spontaneous thrombosis of an intracranial aneurysm