[Neurosurgery and pituitary tumors: etio-pathogenic considerations]. / La neurochirurgie et les tumeurs hypophysaires. Considérations étio-pathogéniques.

PITUITARY ADENOMA: Based on the experience of nearly 5000 cases of surgically treated pituitary tumors at the neurosurgery department of the Foch Hospital, the pituitary adenoma is the most frequent pituitary tumor. Secreting tumors lead to a clinical syndrome depending on the level of hormone overproduction. Gonadotrop or non-functioning pituitary adenomas are mainly macroadenomas presenting with visual symptoms, hypopituitarism or as an incidentaloma. Anatomical features dictate the surgical approach. OTHER TUMORS: The other types of hypophyseal tumors, such as craniopharyngioma, Rathke's cleft cyst or others are usually surgical tumors because medical treatment is ineffective. Malignant pituitary tumors are unusual.

A case of ruptured dissecting aneurysm 5 years after pituitary microsurgical treatment of Cushing's disease: autopsy findings in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.

The patient was a 26-year-old man with Cushing's disease who underwent transsphenoidal microscopic surgery for a pituitary microadenoma. His postoperative course was uneventful, but he died suddenly five years after the operation. At autopsy, a ruptured dissecting aneurysm with marked atherosclerosis was observed in the aorta. In the pituitary, a small focus of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) producing adenoma, possibly residual adenoma, was detected and Crooke's degeneration was observed in the non-tumorous pituitary gland. But immunohistochemical patterns of pituitary hormones in the non-tumorous pituitary gland were normal and the adrenal cortex was unremarkable. In the hypothalamus, corticotropin-releasing hormone immunoreactivity was not detected and arginine vasopressin was sporadically positive. Considering these findings, this patient may have developed subclinical hypercortisolism due to the residual adenoma at the time of autopsy, despite clinical remission. Cushing's syndrome is considered to be a risk factor dissecting aneurysm, and in this case the metabolic changes in Cushing's disease may have influenced the development of the dissecting aneurysm. Periodic cardiovascular re-evaluations should therefore be performed when there is clinical remission of Cushing's syndrome.