What are the clinical manifestations of pituitary tumors?

  Pituitary adenoma is a common intracranial tumor with an annual incidence of 7.5-15/100,000 people, with a higher incidence in women than in men, mostly in the age of 20-40. Although most pituitary adenomas are benign and do not directly endanger patients’ lives, they often cause a series of hormone secretion disorders, which bring great pain and economic burden to patients.  Pituitary adenomas are divided into many types according to the differences in hormone secretion. Different types of pituitary tumors have different symptoms: 1. Prolactin-secreting type: Women may have irregular menstruation, amenorrhea and breast overflow, and infertility. Adolescent or married women will also have longer menstrual cycles or even amenorrhea, breast overflow, and inability to have children after marriage. Male sexual function changes: low libido, impotence, no beard, voice thinning, sterility; 2. Growth hormone secretion type: changes in face, limbs and shape. Adults show wide hands and feet, wide head and face, enlarged nose, thickened lips, increased hair, and symptoms such as hoarseness, sleep snoring and sleep apnea syndrome; 3. Adrenocorticotropic hormone-secreting type: centripetal obesity. Patients will accumulate fat in the chest, abdomen and buttocks, while the limbs are relatively thin and small, showing “centripetal obesity”, with a full-moon face, significant weight gain, and purple lines appearing in the subcutaneous blood vessels of the limbs; 4.Non-functional pituitary adenoma: Most of them have no symptoms in the early stage, but when the pituitary tumor is larger than one centimeter in diameter, there will be severe headache due to compression of the saddle diaphragm. The headache is mainly located behind the orbit, in the forehead and near the temples bilaterally. If the tumor develops anteriorly and superiorly, the optic nerve will be compressed and crossed, leading to vision loss and visual field loss.  5. Other types: FSH, LH, TSH pituitary tumors are less common in clinical practice. In addition to their respective symptoms, common manifestations include polyhydramnios (thirst and urination), headache, dizziness, significant loss of vision, and visual field defects (difficulty seeing on both sides). In case of pituitary tumor stroke (tumor bleeding) may also be accompanied by severe headache, nausea, vomiting, and even blindness.  In recent years, the incidence of pituitary tumor has been increasing year by year. Although there is no definite conclusion on the specific mechanism of pituitary adenoma, we found in the clinical treatment that some unhealthy habits of modern people can affect the development of pituitary tumor.  The relationship between sleep and pituitary adenoma: Some studies have shown that among 200 cases of pituitary adenoma patients investigated, 80% of them went to bed after 23:00, and some even went to bed at 1~2:00 am. In Chinese medicine, the theory of “heaven and man correspond to each other”, there are certain rules for the functions of the five internal organs at different times of the day: from 11:00 pm to 1:00 am, the bile is at its peak, and the body is fully supporting the liver to detoxify, so that the liver can secrete bile and store it in the gallbladder. The liver is at its peak between 1:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. It is well known that the liver is the largest detoxification organ in the body. The liver helps detoxify the body during this time. 3 to 5 o’clock is when the lungs are at their peak, and 5 to 7 o’clock is when the large intestine is at its peak, and both of these organs are important organs for excretion in Chinese medicine. From the perspective of Western medicine, from 11:00 to 7:00 in the morning of the next day is the time period of human excretion and endocrine regulation, so this 8 hours of sleep is very important. However, due to the rapid development of the modern economy, the accelerated pace of work and life, and the increasingly rich nightlife, lack of sleep has seriously jeopardized human health.  At present, Western medicine surgical excision is still the main treatment for pituitary tumor, but microadenoma less than 1 cm is not indicated for surgery. In addition, the side effects of western medicine and radiotherapy can damage the normal pituitary tissue and cause sequelae, all of these treatments are defective. Therefore, more and more people are seeking Chinese medicine treatment. Chinese medicine is a “people-centered” individual medicine, and more and more people are beginning to pay attention to individual differences.  TCM can eliminate pituitary microadenoma, reduce the recurrence rate after surgery, reduce the side effects of western medicine, improve the quality of life, reduce mental stress, and reduce the financial burden by formulating individualized treatment plans for pituitary tumor patients through evidence-based treatment. A large number of clinical treatments have shown that most patients have different degrees of tumor shrinkage and disappearance after 1~2 years of continuous treatment, hormones return to the normal range, and pituitary tumors disappear on magnetic resonance review.