ECE2020 Audio ePoster Presentations Pituitary and Neuroendocrinology (217 abstracts)
1University Hospital, Endocrinology Department, Krakow, Poland; 2Jagiellonian University Medical College, Chair and Department of Endocrinology, Krakow, Poland; 3Jagiellonian University Medical College, Department of Pediatric and Adolescent Endocrinology, Krakow, Poland
Background: Pituitary stalk lesions (PSL) is a general term used to describe changes located in the pituitary infundibulum. Special anatomical locus makes the diagnosis difficult to establish. Most of the patients with PSL characterizes with hypopituitarism and multiple metabolic abnormalities.
Aim: To present the characteristic of patients with PSL.
Methods: We analyzed data of 35 patients (21 M/14 W) with pituitary stalk lesions on the basis of long term observation in the pediatric/adult endocrinology departments of our university. Current metabolic data were available for 19 patients. The etiologies were divided into three groups (congenital, inflammatory, neoplastic) and classified as exact, probable or unknown.
Results: The mean age of diagnosis was 28 years (
Conclusions: The diagnosis, management and treatment of the pituitary stalk lesions remain challenging. Difficulties in establishing the exact diagnosis mightbe related to the non-specific, transient characteristics of the symptoms and hormonal insufficiencies. Metabolic abnormalities in patients with hypopituitarism caused by PSL are very common. Long term observations might help better the understanding of the disease and result in improvement of management.