In the treatment of pituitary tumors gamma knife is the most common one, but not all pituitary tumors can take gamma knife treatment, from decades of clinical work concluded that generally the following cases of pituitary tumors need to be treated by gamma knife: 1, cavernous sinus or skull base invasion of pituitary tumors, postoperative residual recurrence or preferred treatment.
2, drug therapy is ineffective, can not tolerate the side effects of drug therapy or unwilling to surgery patients with pituitary microadenoma.
3.Pituitary adenoma with postoperative residual or recurrence; (pituitary macroadenoma with optic bundle and optic cross spacing >3- 5mm).
4.Pituitary tumor patients who cannot tolerate surgery due to old age or with medical diseases (such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease or coagulation disorders), etc.
In this regard, many patients are interested in knowing about gamma knife treatment of pituitary tumors will not cause any adverse reactions or side effects, hair loss does not occur very often, the most common side effect is normal pituitary hypofunction. This can occur up to 1 year or many years after treatment. One study showed that 50% of patients developed one or more pituitary hormone deficiencies within 2 years of conventional radiotherapy.
Gamma Knife focused radiation studies show that approximately 1/3 of patients will develop one pituitary hormone deficiency, and it is estimated that the percentage will increase as the time after treatment increases. The development of pituitary hormone deficiency is not desired, however hormone replacement therapy is effective. An uncommon side effect is visual impairment.
These risks must be weighed against the risk of tumor regrowth.