ECE2019 Poster Presentations Pituitary and Neuroendocrinology 3 (73 abstracts)
Department of Endocrinology, Hedi Chaker Hospital, Sfax, Tunisia.
Introduction: The pituitary stalk is the target of various congenital or acquired pathologies. In this context we report a cohort of 28 patients with pathology of the pituitary stalk to analyze their clinical, hormonal and radiological characteristics.
Results: The average age of our patients was 28 years with extremes ranging from (15 to 64); Male dominance was noted in 60% of cases. The reason for consultation was either a staturo delay or a pubertal delay in the majority of cases. A personal history of fetal distress was found in 17.8% of cases as well the seat presentation the out of childbirth was 14.2% of cases. Hormonal exploration revealed a corticotrope deficit in 35.7% of cases; thyrotrophic deficiency in 32% of cases; somatoropic deficit in 35.7% of cases and a gonadtropic deficit in 28.5% of cases. Finally hyperprolactinemia was noted in 21.4% of patients. Hypothalamic-pituitary MRI showed thickening of the pituitary stalk in 13 cases, rupture in 15 cases including 7 cases associated with hypoplasia of the anterior pituitary. For the thickening of the pituitary stem the origin was: sarcoidosis in 2 cases; langerhansian histiocytosis in 2 cases; tuberculosis in 2 cases; lymphocytic hypophisitis in 2 cases; metastasis of cancers in 4 cases and two cases of unknown origin.
Conclusion: Given the multitude of pituitary stalk pathologies, a detailed etiologic inquiry must be performed in order to detect elements able to reclassify an initially idiopathic disorder.