Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Clinically nonfunctioning pituitary adenomas (NFPA) are the most common pituitary tumor type. They are usually recognized after they cause symptoms especially when tumor size increases and eventually invades adjacent structures. Nevertheless the discovery would also be accidental. In the literature some kind of gender difference is reported in NFA’s behavioral results such as pituitary axis deficits or consequences of surgery however they resulted with controversial reports. In our study we investigated if there is male/female preponderance in terms of NFA’s some number of features.

Materials and methods: We retrospectively examined 101 patients diagnosed as NFA biochemically and radiologically. All patients were questioned for each possible symptom of pituitary adenoma at diagnosis. Every patient was examined by laboratory pituitary hormonal tests. Pituitary adenomas were radiographically evaluated by MRI (dimensions(mm): d1×d2×d3). Microsurgical resection of adenoma was performed in patients with symptomatic or large and invasive tumors.

Results: 101 patients (57 female (56.4%) and 44 male (43.6%)) were assessed in the study. The age at diagnosis was younger for women than men (40.0 yr vs 51.4 yr, P:0.000). Tumor size were larger for men (d1: 21.9±2.6 mm vs 9.4±1.4 mm, P:0.000). Among the rate of symptoms headache was the most frequent. Blurred vision was more common in men (45.5% vs 26.8%, P:0.06). The frequency of pituitary hormone deficiency was more common in men (37.0% vs 12.1%). 43 (42%) patients have been performed pituitary surgery. Postsurgical hypopituitarism was more commonly seen in female, whereas permanent DI was more abundant in male, with nonsignificance in both issues (38.5% in female vs. 27.5% in male, P:0.34; 7.7% in female vs. 13.3% in male, P:0.60; respectively).

Conclusion: Sex would be a prognostic parameter in NPA patients in terms of hypopituitarism, postoperative hypopituitarism and tumor mass. In our study, women were shown to be diagnosed earlier and men were defined to have larger tumors. Greatly would be explained with the mass effect, we determined hypopituitarism was more common in men. Selectively postsurgical hypopituitarism, however nonsignificant, was found more common in female group in our study.