Diagnosis and treatment of pituitary incidentalomas

Abstract

Pituitary incidentalomas (PIs) are defined as previously unexpected pituitary lesions which are accidentally discovered during imaging examinations performed for unrelated reasons, including pituitary adenoma, craniopharyngioma, Rathke's cyst, pituitary hyperplasia and other sellar lesions. With the wide application of imaging techniques, especially MRI, more and more pituitary incidentalomas have been detected. However, there are still many problems regarding the definition of pituitary incidentaloma, natural course of disease, intervention indication at the first diagnosis, follow⁃up plan, and so on, resulting in misdiagnosis and overtreatment. This review attempts to discuss the definition, relevant factors for predicting the natural course of tumor, diagnosis, surgical indications, and individualized follow ⁃up plan, and so on, in order to attract clinical attention and conduct related research to further clarify the clinical unsolved problems.

Keywords

• pituitary neoplasms
• adenoma
• cysts
• craniopharyngioma
• hypophysitis
• hyperplasia
• review