Pituitary Gland Tumors - Effects on Health and Treatment Options

Featuring Dr. Ronald Goldenberg, MD, FRCPC, FACE, Endocrinologist Video Title: Pituitary Gland Tumors - Effects on Health and Treatment Options Duration: 1 minute, 43 seconds

The pituitary gland is the master gland in the body, it controls many of the other endocrine glands in the body.

Sometimes the pituitary gland will develop a growth or a nodule, and the large majority of these are benign. If you’ve been told you have a growth or nodule in your pituitary there are a few important things that your physician will try to figure out.

Number one, what is the size of the gland and the tumour, and is it impinging on surrounding structures like the optic nerve, which could affect your vision. And then the physician will do tests to see if the tumour is producing hormones, or excessive amounts of hormones.

So there’s something called a prolactinoma, which is a milk hormone, and this would lead to excessive breast milk in a woman, or sometimes stop their periods, and it’s often a cause of infertility. And that’s easy to treat with medication.

If the pituitary gland is producing excessive amounts of the hormone we call ACTH, that can cause Cushing’s syndrome. And if pituitary is producing excessive amounts of growth hormone, that can cause a condition we call acromegaly.

So pituitary tumours will be diagnosed by a series of biochemical tests and imaging, typically MRI scans or CT scans, and the treatment may be surgical or medical, depending on the type of tumour that you have.

If you suspect you may have pituitary disease or a pituitary tumour, see your physician and appropriate tests can be arranged.

Video Title: Pituitary Gland Tumors - Effects on Health and Treatment Options

Presenter: Dr. Ronald Goldenberg, Endocrinologist, Thornhill, ON

Local Practitioners: Endocrinologist