What are the early symptoms of pituitary tumors

A large part of the reason for pituitary tumors is due to abnormal pituitary hormone secretion. It often occurs in young and middle-aged people. We need to actively treat pituitary tumors. It develops quickly. It is necessary for everyone to understand some of its early symptoms and seek medical treatment in time. So, what are the early symptoms of pituitary tumors?

Symptoms of pituitary tumors:

1. Decreased vision and visual field loss

Pituitary adenoma can break through the sella turcica floor and grow downward, invading important blood vessels and nerves in the skull to both sides, but the most common way of growth is to develop above the sella turcica and compress the optic chiasm and optic nerve, causing decreased vision and visual field defects. Patients often complain of decreased vision and inability to see to the sides. If visual and visual field disorders occur, surgery is required as soon as possible.

2. Changes in facial and body shape

Growth hormone-producing pituitary adenomas cause excessive growth of limbs, muscles and internal organs due to excessive secretion of growth hormone. In puberty, gigantism occurs before the epiphyses fuse, while in adults, the symptoms include enlarged hands and feet, a broad head and face, high cheekbones, enlarged nose, thickened lips, loose, coarse and dark skin, increased hair, hoarseness, snoring during sleep and sleep apnea syndrome.

3. Poor sexual function

The main reasons for sexual dysfunction caused by pituitary adenoma are: the compression of normal pituitary tissue by pituitary adenoma and the damage caused by radiotherapy cause pituitary dysfunction, which affects the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal axis in the human body, resulting in insufficient secretion of gonadotropin, further leading to hypogonadism; prolactin-type pituitary microadenoma affects sexual life, which is related to hyperprolactinemia inhibiting the release of gonadotropin, reducing pituitary responsiveness and reducing testosterone production; thyrotropin-type pituitary adenoma has low thyroid function and slow systemic metabolism, which reduces the metabolism of estrogen and androgen in the body with the lack of thyroid hormone; obesity caused by adrenocorticotropic hormone-type and growth hormone-type pituitary adenomas is also one of the causes of sexual dysfunction.

4. Headache

About 2/3 of patients have headache symptoms in the early stages. The pain is mainly located behind the eye sockets, in the forehead and near the temples on both sides. It is mild and occurs intermittently.

Warm reminder: The tumor is partially removed during surgery, but a part of it remains in the brain, and the residual tumor will grow again in the future. In this case, the number of reexaminations is more than the former. Due to different conditions, the number of reexaminations and the interval time are determined according to the specific situation. If clinical discomfort symptoms occur or the original symptoms worsen, a reexamination should be conducted in time. Problems can be found in time through reexamination and timely treatment can be given.