Endocrine Abstracts

The majority of space-occupying lesions in the region of the pituitary are adenomas, but a substantial minority (c. 10%) are either non-adenomatous pituitary 'tumors', or are hypothalamic lesions. A useful clue is that primary pituitary adenomas only very rarely present with diabetes insipidus. In the case of a hypothalamic lesion, problems with appetite, thirst control and short-term memory can be therapeutically highly problematic. Apart from craniopharyngiomas, the most com...

The treatment of craniopharyngiomas remains controversial, as no prospective randomized study has been performed. Although it is a benign tumour it may be life threatening because of its malignant growth and high recurrence rate. Compared to the general population, patients with this tumour has a 5-9-fold excess of mortality. The recurrence rate of the tumour seems to be dependent on the extent of tumour removal, the patient's age, and time of follow up. Primary radical surger...

The low incidence of new cases of craniopharyngioma, 1-2 per million per year, and the great variability of morbidity at presentation, have made the evaluation of optimal tumour management extremely difficult. Two patterns of management have evolved over the last 3 decades, namely the performance of 'definitive' radical surgery at onset followed by the use of irradiation to deal with any later recurrence and subtotal tumour resection at onset followed by early irradiation to p...