What are the symptoms and characteristics of pituitary tumors

The pituitary gland is an important organ. The pituitary hormone it secretes can maintain the body's hormone balance and protect the body's health. After suffering from a pituitary tumor, it directly affects hormone secretion, causing the body's hormone secretion disorder, which is very harmful to the body and can also cause various complications. So, what are the symptoms and characteristics of pituitary tumors?

Symptoms of pituitary tumors:

1. Changes in vision and visual field (one or both eyes cannot see clearly, and it is easy to bump into the door frame. In severe cases, it gradually develops into blindness or sudden blindness due to headache).

2. Headache is one of the symptoms of pituitary tumor.

3. Acromegaly: progressive enlargement of the hands, feet, head, thorax and limbs, hypertrophy of the palms and soles, thickening of the fingers, spherical at the distal ends, bulging forehead, prominent eye sockets, cheekbones and mandible, widening of the gaps between teeth, thickening of the lips, wide and flat nose bridge, and enlarged earlobes.

4. Menstrual disorders, amenorrhea, lactation (spontaneous breast milk discharge or milk discharge after touching the breasts), inability to conceive, changes in sexual desire and ability (mostly decreased sexual ability), reduction in body hair, skin changes (thinning), etc.; these are also very important symptoms.

5. Pituitary adenoma can break through the sella turcica floor and grow downward, and invade important blood vessels and nerves in the skull to both sides. However, 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.

6. 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; suffering from 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.

The above is an introduction to the symptoms and characteristics of pituitary tumors. I hope it will be helpful to you.