A Five-Year Panorama: Unraveling the Clinicopathological Spectrum of Pituitary Tumors in a Tertiary Hospital

Background: Nowadays, pituitary gland tumors are increasingly recognized as common disorders, accounting for up to 25% of intracranial neoplasms. Mentioned repeatedly there are not many studies investigating the updated and larger epidemiology of pituitary gland tumors studies are needed.

Methods: This study employed a descriptive observational study design with a retrospective approach using secondary data from medical records of patients diagnosed with pituitary gland tumors at Dr. Soetomo General Hospital Surabaya from January 2019 – December 2023.

Results: A total of 193 patients met the inclusion criteria. Variables studied included age, gender, demographic origin, clinical manifestations, blood hormone levels, radiological imaging, histopathology, immunohistochemistry, and patient management.

Conclusions: Among the patients, 56.5% are females, with the largest age group being 51–60 years (24.9%), and most patients resided in East Java Province outside Surabaya City (61.1%). Most common clinical manifestations were visual disturbances (66.3%), headache (58.3%), and nausea–vomiting (16%). About 31,1% of patients presented with hormone-related manifestations. Laboratory examination of blood hormone levels showed the following results: non-functioning pituitary adenoma (51.8%), prolactinoma (39.4%), gonadotroph adenoma (2.1%), somatotroph adenoma (2.1%), TSH-producing tumor (1%), and cortisol-producing tumor (6.6%). examination of pituitary tumors was most commonly performed using MRI, showing lesions with a diameter ≥10 mm, well-defined margins, regular borders, solid components, and no calcification. Histopathological findings revealed that most of the samples were pituitary adenomas (94.3%), with only one case of pituitary carcinoma identified. The most commonly used pharmacological treatments were CRIPSA (22.8%), dexamethasone (21.2%), and euthyroxine (10.6%), Most frequent surgical management was Endoscopic Transsphenoidal Surgery (70.4%).