What is a pituitary tumor?

What is the pituitary gland?

This gland is very important and controls a number of important hormones including thyroid, cortisol, growth hormone, and prolactin (makes breast milk during pregnancy). 

Is a pituitary tumor considered cancer?

In short, no.  Pituitary tumors are considered benign tumors, which is great. 

Do all pituitary tumors need treatment?

No they certainly don’t.  Because pituitary tumors are benign, we can simply watch them if they are small.  However, some people have pituitary tumors that continue to grow and as they enlarge they can compress the nerves that control vision.  A lot of times, patients will actually discover these tumors because they do develop vision loss and they go see an eye doctor who diagnoses them with this tumor.

How do you treat a pituitary tumor?

The most common treatment is surgical resection.  However, the exception to this is for management of a prolactin secreting pituitary tumor (aka prolactinoma).  If you have a prolactinoma, then this can often be treated with medication.  Pituitary tumors can also be treated with radiation, but this is typically reserved for a secondary treatment if needed.

If I have a large pituitary tumor, does that mean I need brain surgery?

For large pituitary tumors, we often do need to perform surgery to take it out.  This prevents or relieves pressure from developing on the nerves for the eyes causing vision loss.  The good news is that this is a relatively low risk operation.  In fact, the operation is performed by going through the nose using a camera.  So this means that although it is a “brain surgery”, we don’t actually make any scalp incisions.

So you can take out the tumor through the nose?

That’s right!  We can go through your nostrils all the way back to an area called the sphenoid sinus.  This space is in front and beneath the pituitary gland and is a working space for us to remove the tumor.

If I have surgery, am I cured?

This is a tough question, and depends a lot on the tumor that you have and if it can be resected completely.  If the tumor can be resected completely, then yes, you have a good chance of being cured.  But we still need to follow you with imaging after surgery, even with a great resection, to make sure it doesn’t come back in the future.

Sometimes the tumor can’t be removed completely and in those cases we may simply watch the residual tumor to ensure it doesn’t continue to grow.  The other option is proceeding with radiation after surgery to ensure that the chance for future growth remains small.

If my tumor is small and doesn’t need surgery, should I still see a surgeon?

Although not everyone with a pituitary tumor needs surgery, I like to follow patients even with small pituitary tumors to make sure they don’t grow over time.  I have seen many patients that lose vision years after diagnosis.  Even though the tumor is benign, it still needs to be followed to make sure it doesn’t cause problems.

Do you do this surgery frequently? 

Yes, this is one of the primary surgical procedures I perform.  In fact, we do this so frequently at UT that we developed a team of doctors including ENT and Endocrinology for our patients to receive the best care possible.