SFEBES2025 Poster Presentations Neuroendocrinology and Pituitary (48 abstracts)
Routes to diagnosis of pituitary neuroendocrine tumour: a 20 year analysis
Doua S Ahmed 1 , Brian Herron 2 , Stephen Cooke 3 , Philip Weir 3 , Jane Evanson 4 , Stephanie G Craig 5 , Jacqueline A James 5,6,7 , Márta Korbonits 8 , Steven J Hunter 1 & Paul Benjamin Loughrey 1,5
1Regional Centre for Endocrinology and Diabetes, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, Belfast, United Kingdom; 2Department of Cellular Pathology, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, Belfast, United Kingdom; 3Department of Neurosurgery, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, Belfast, United Kingdom; 4Department of Radiology, Barts Health NHS Trust, London, United Kingdom; 5Patrick G Johnston Centre for Cancer Research, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom; 6Northern Ireland Biobank, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, Belfast, United Kingdom; 7Regional Molecular Diagnostic Service, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, Belfast, United Kingdom; 8Department of Endocrinology, William Harvey Research Institute, Barts and the London School of Medicine, Queen Mary University of London, London, United Kingdom
Pituitary neuroendocrine tumours (PitNETs) have a spectrum of clinical manifestations and patients often present to various specialities before receiving a diagnosis. Symptoms can overlap with those of other, more common conditions. The aim of this study is to explore how the diagnosis of PitNET came to be made in a regional cohort of patients with PitNETs ultimately managed via neurosurgical intervention. Cases of surgically-managed PitNETs were identified by searching SNOMED codes within histopathological archives. Clinicopathological data were collected retrospectively as part of an audit within the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust; approval number 6057. From 01/01/2000-19/07/2023, 537 adult patients underwent a first surgery for PitNET in Northern Ireland. Data were available for 520 patients in whom the referral source leading to diagnosis was known. Two hundred and twenty-three patients (43%) were female. Median age at diagnosis was 54 years (range 18–85 years). Median diagnostic delay was 2 years (range 0–25 years). Patients with PitNETs were referred from 27 different sources. The most common sources of referral were general practice in 162/520 (31%), ophthalmology 74/520 (14%), emergency medicine 48/520 (9%), optician/optometry 45/520 (9%) and neurology 37/520 (7%). In only 6% was the diagnosis of PitNET first queried by endocrinology. A higher proportion of those who had apoplexy were referred from emergency medicine compared to non-emergency medicine practitioners (p<0.001). Patients with macro-PitNETs were more likely to be referred by ophthalmology/optician/optometry compared to micro-pitNETs (p<0.001). Those with macro-PitNETs were also more likely to have diagnosis of cataract or glaucoma compared to those with micro-PitNETs (p=0.043). These data demonstrate the diagnostic delay and widespread routes of diagnosis associated with PitNETs. Patients with PitNETs encounter a range of clinical services in their journey to pituitary surgery. Raising awareness of these tumours across all clinical disciplines could reduce diagnostic delay.
Volume 109
Article tools
My recent searches
My recently viewed abstracts
Authors
Endocrine Abstracts
ISSN 1470-3947 (print) | ISSN 1479-6848 (online)
© Bioscientifica 2025 |
Privacy policy |
Cookie settings
BiosciAbstracts
Bioscientifica Abstracts is the gateway to a series of products that provide a permanent, citable record of abstracts for biomedical and life science conferences.
Find out more