Risk Factors, Radiological and Clinical Outcomes in Subclinical and Clinical Pituitary Apoplexy

Abstract

Background: Pituitary apoplexy (PA) can be symptomatic, namely acute apoplexy (APA), or asymptomatic or subclinical (SPA). Objective: To describe the clinical characteristics and evolution of the patients with APA compared to SPA Patients and methods: Retrospective, longitudinal database analysis. Results: We identified 58 patients with PA, and 37 accomplished the inclusion criteria (17 men, median age 47.7 years). A total of 29 (78.4%) had APA (17 underwent surgery, and 12 were conservatively managed), and 8 (21.6%) had SPA. The presence of non-functioning pituitary adenoma (NFPA) odds ratio (OR): 29.36 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.86–462.36) and the largest size OR 1.10 (95% CI: 1.01–1.2) elevated the risk of having surgery. Hypopituitarism developed in 35.1% without significant differences between APA and SPA. In non-surgical patients, adenoma volume shrunk spontaneously at one year magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), without statistical differences between the conservatively treated and SPA group. Conclusions: APA is more frequent in larger NFPAs, and this subset of patients has a higher risk of surgery. Hypopituitarism is quite frequent even in patients with SPA, and, therefore, long-term follow-up is mandatory. In the non-surgical group, the pituitary tumour shrinkage is clinically relevant after one year of PA. Consequently, surgery indication in NFPA should be delayed and reassessed if patients remain asymptomatic.