Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Pituitary adenomas (PA) or endocrine pituitary tumors are the most common pituitary tumors. Our goal is to assess their hormonal profile.

Patients and methods: Our study is observational, multicenter, with prospective and retrospective data collection. Data entry and analysis was performed by CDC (USA) EPI Info version 6, SPSS20, Statistica10, Medcalc12.

Results: Concerning the hormonal profile of the 475 PA collected, 77.5% were secreting against 22.5% not or apparently non-secreting. Macroadenomas were predominant (66.5%, P 0.001). Prolactin was elevated in 62.7%. It was either a functional or disconnected hyperprolactinemia, or of tumor origin. The mean prolactinemia was significantly (P=0.006) higher in men: 578.2 Vs 189.1 ng/ml. Hypopituitarism (≥2 axes) calculated as for macroadenomas was noted in 35%. Gonadal deficit, functional in microlesions and organic and/or functional in macroadenomas, was the most common (56.5%) compared to the other deficits. Impaired gonadal function is followed by the thyrotropic deficit noted in 32%. Corticotropic and somatotropic deficits come last, 27% and 6.5%, respectively. Somatotropic function was not systematically explored in our retrospective study. Multiple deficits affecting more than 3 axes were noted in 17.0%. Post-pituitary function impairment was present in 4.7%.

Conclusion: Our results can of course be explained by the frequency of macrolysis but also by the delay in the diagnosis of these tumors.

Key words: pituitary adenomas, hormonal profile, hyperprolactinemia, pituitary deficits.