The correlational study between function and morphological change of pituitary gland in the patients with non-sellar intracranial tumors

LU Songsong; PEI Jiasheng; HUANG Yinxing; XUE Liang; ZHANG Shangming; ZHAO Qingshuang; WANG Shousen

Abstract：Objective The relationship between the function and morphological change of pituitary gland in the patients with non-sellar intracranial tumors were investigated.Methods The patients with intracranial non-sellar tumors between May 2014 and March 2015 in our department were included retrospectively.The status of pituitary function was assessed by the level of pre-operative serum hormone.Regarding the size and morphology of the pituitary,the sellar region T1 WI median sagittal plane was used to measure the pituitary anterior-posterior diameter,sagittal height,and coronal pituitary width.The pituitary morphology was categorized into the enlarged type,depressed type,and flat type on the basis of the pituitary superior border.The function and morphological changes of pituitary in the patients with non-sellar intracranial tumors were studied in the study.Results In the study,83 cases were included.There were 30 cases of pre-operative pituitary insufficiency including 23 eases of deficiency in one pituitary axe and 7 cases of multiaxial deficiency.There was no statistically significant differences between function and morphological change of pituitary gland in the patients with non-sellar intracranial tumors (P ＞0.05).Patients with tumors located in subdural interparenchyma had a lower sagittal height with statistically significant difference (P＜0.05).At the same time,the incidence of depressed type-pituitary was higher than the other two groups with statistically significant difference (P ＜ 0.05).Conclusion The hypopituitarism in the patients with non-sellar intracranial tumors has a higher morbidity.There is no definite relationship between the function and morphological change of pituitary gland.But in subdural parenchymal tumors (e.g.,meningioma,acoustic neurom a),pituitary sagittal height is lower than the other tumors and the depressed type of pituitary is common in terms of murphology.