Pituitary Network Association

Summary of Important Points (Quoted from Pituitary Network Association Website)


Prolactin levels allow the important distinction between a true prolactin producing adenoma and a nonfunctional adenoma with stalk effect to be made with relative security in most patients.

Patients with prolactin secreting pituitary tumors (prolactinomas) should be treated as first line with Dopamine agonist therapy, while nonfunctional or other tumors should not.

Surgery may still be necessary in a prolactinoma and is almost always needed as first line treatment in patients with other functional pituitary tumor types.

Because the hormonal systems of the pituitary are complex, a wide variety of clinical syndromes can be caused by tumors. However, because the majority of pituitary tumors are either prolactinomas or nonfunctional tumors, the symptoms of those two types (menstrual disruption, infertility, galactorrhea, headache, and/or visual disturbance) should raise the issues of a pituitary tumor in patients who complain of one or more elements of that constellation.

The cognitive and psychosocial disruption exhibited by patients with pituitary tumors is real and should be viewed as manifestation of physical disease that can be amenable to appropriately directed therapies.

Although women with pituitary tumors may be diagnosed by their obstetrician/gynecologist, ultimate treatment of such tumors should be carried out under the joint care of an endocrinologist and neurosurgeon