Pituitary tumor is a benign brain tumor, which is relatively common.
Endocrine manifestations: (1) Growth hormone cell adenoma: Early stage of the tumor is only a few millimeters in size, mainly manifesting as excessive secretion of growth hormone. In adolescent patients, excessive growth can occur and even develop into a giant. In adults, the tumor may show signs of hypertrophy of the extremities. Some patients have increased food intake, rough hair and skin, pigmentation, and numbness of fingers. In severe cases, the patient may feel general weakness, headache and arthralgia, hypogonadism, amenorrhea and infertility, and even diabetes.
(2) Prolactin cell adenoma: The main manifestations are amenorrhea, overflow of milk, infertility, axillary hair loss, pale and delicate skin, increased subcutaneous fat, as well as weakness, fatigue, drowsiness, headache, and hypogonadism. In men, the symptoms include loss of libido, impotence, breast enlargement, beard thinning, atrophy of the reproductive organs, reduction of sperm count and infertility, etc. There are not many male and female patients.
(3) Adrenocorticotropic hormone cell adenoma: clinical manifestations are centripetal obesity, full-moon face, buffalo back, polycythemia, purple lines on the skin of the abdomen and thighs, and increased fine hair. In severe cases, amenorrhea, loss of libido, general weakness, and even bedridden. Some patients also have hypertension, diabetes, etc.
(4) Thyroid-stimulating hormone tumor: Rarely, hyperthyroidism is caused by excessive secretion of thyroid-stimulating hormone from the pituitary gland, and the symptoms disappear after removal of the pituitary tumor. The symptoms of hyperthyroidism disappear after removal of the pituitary tumor. There are also cases of focal hyperplasia of the pituitary gland caused by hypothyroidism feedback, which gradually develops into pituitary adenoma.
(5) Follicle-stimulating hormone cell adenoma: Very rare, only a few reports of clinical hypogonadism, amenorrhea, infertility and reduced sperm count.
(6) Melanin-stimulating hormone cell adenoma: very rare, only a few patients reported black skin pigmentation without cortisol increase.
(7) Endocrine inactive adenoma: In early stage, the patient has no special feeling that the tumor grows up and can compress the pituitary gland causing clinical manifestations of pituitary insufficiency.
(2) Visual field disorder: Early pituitary adenoma often has no visual field disorder. If the tumor grows up and extends upward to compress the visual cross, visual field defect will appear, and the outer upper quadrant will be affected first, and the red visual field will be shown first. Later, when the lesion increases and the pressure is heavier, the white visual field is also affected, and gradually the defect can be expanded to bilateral temporal hemianopia. If left untreated, the visual field defect can be further enlarged and the visual acuity can be diminished to total blindness. Because pituitary tumors are mostly benign, the initial lesions can last for a considerable period of time, and when the disease is serious, the visual field impairment can suddenly increase, and if the tumor is on one side, it can lead to monocular blindness or blindness.
If the tumor grows posteriorly to obstruct the anterior part of the 3rd ventricle and interventricular foramen, headache, vomiting and other symptoms of increased intracranial pressure may occur.