Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Pituitary adenomas are broadly classified based on size (microadenomas and macroadenomas) and functionality. While their management has established national and international guidelines based on these two classifications, we aim to evaluate the same in a post-pandemic era, when health care resources are already stretched and have a significant backlog to deal with.

Aim: To carry out a retrospective analysis of all pituitary adenomas diagnosed in the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board (ABUHB) area with a catchment population of 600, 000 between January 2021 to June 2023.

Method: In a retrospective observational study all Pituitary adenomas diagnosed during this between Jan 2021 – June 2023 were identified for detailed analysis from a database of all MRI scans of Pituitary performed over the same period.

Results: A total of 79 MRI pituitary scans were done during the period established above, identifying 56 patients with pituitary adenomas. 29 of these 56 patients were found to have new pituitary adenomas, and were reviewed in-depth via case notes, as the other 27 already had established management prior to the pandemic.The Incidence of Pituitary tumours within the Gwent area is 0.5/100,000 population.

Conclusion: Our findings indicate a growing incidence rate of Pituitary adenomas in the last decade, due to the increased percentage of Incidentalomas identified with the rising volume of requests for Brain and Pituitary imaging and the impact of the delayed tests from the effect of the recent Covid Pandemic. Our study also demonstrates that referrals to the Regional Pituitary MDT were appropriate.