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Pituitary Tumor
Daughter is said to have a pituitary tumor. She had Mri's that have shown nothing but all other tests are positive including the venous blood test were they took blood samples from both sides. They say they need to go in there and look to see what they can see. They may need to take half of the gland that showed the side it was on. Has anyone had this done? does this sound right?
Hello! I have had this test. It is called PSS or IPSS... it is not the most pleasant test I had - in fact I have to say I thought it would be worse than surgery but in the end, it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Some places put the patient under and so she would be more comfortable - some places keep the patient awake - they generally are not as happy with the procedure I must say.
This test is usually done when the MRI is not clear where the tumor is, and they want to confirm that the pituitary is the source of the corticosteroid. The reason is that a secreting mass could be anywhere in the body - it could be the adrenal glands or a tumor in the lung or anywhere. So they have to check if they are not 100% certain. Some surgeons want this test done routinely.
I had Cushing's as well. I hope your daughter is in the hands of an expert.
This test is usually done when the MRI is not clear where the tumor is, and they want to confirm that the pituitary is the source of the corticosteroid. The reason is that a secreting mass could be anywhere in the body - it could be the adrenal glands or a tumor in the lung or anywhere. So they have to check if they are not 100% certain. Some surgeons want this test done routinely.
I had Cushing's as well. I hope your daughter is in the hands of an expert.
Hi there-
Sorry to hear about your daughter. It sounds like she has a ACTH secreting type adenoma. They did what's called Petrosal Sinus Sampling for Cushing's Syndrome.
In a way she is very lucky that they have found out the mass, as it does not happen for all people that have Cushing's. These masses are usually very small and hard to locate.
You can put that term into a search engine and it will explain it more to you.
A feature of pituitary anatomy is that each half of the pituitary drains into the Ipsilateral Pituitary Sinus (IPS), that makes it possible to figure out what side the tumor is on the pituitary gland. So the docs can make a strong guess as to which side it is located on.
In some patients the neurosurgeon is not able to locate the pituitary tumor once they are operating. However, because it is not always correct, it is important that the neurosurgeon explore the other side if no tumor is found on the predicted side.
So yes it sounds like your daughter is in good hands
There are other posts in this section that have responses to questions that you want to ask the surgeon such as how many pituitary surgeries the surgeon has performed? etc so you might do a little reading-
Horselip
Sorry to hear about your daughter. It sounds like she has a ACTH secreting type adenoma. They did what's called Petrosal Sinus Sampling for Cushing's Syndrome.
In a way she is very lucky that they have found out the mass, as it does not happen for all people that have Cushing's. These masses are usually very small and hard to locate.
You can put that term into a search engine and it will explain it more to you.
A feature of pituitary anatomy is that each half of the pituitary drains into the Ipsilateral Pituitary Sinus (IPS), that makes it possible to figure out what side the tumor is on the pituitary gland. So the docs can make a strong guess as to which side it is located on.
In some patients the neurosurgeon is not able to locate the pituitary tumor once they are operating. However, because it is not always correct, it is important that the neurosurgeon explore the other side if no tumor is found on the predicted side.
So yes it sounds like your daughter is in good hands
There are other posts in this section that have responses to questions that you want to ask the surgeon such as how many pituitary surgeries the surgeon has performed? etc so you might do a little reading-
Horselip
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