Endocrine Abstracts

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 prevent recurrence. A review of the literature will be combined with personal experience in the northwest of England and with findings from pharmacological outcomes research to examine the quality of survival and to resolve the initial therapeutic dilemma.