What are the late symptoms of pituitary tumors

Pituitary tumor is one of the main factors causing headaches. The cause of pituitary tumor is relatively complicated. Clinical research on its cause has never stopped. Some patients do not have obvious symptoms in the early stage, and when the pituitary tumor is detected, it is already in the late stage. So, what are the late symptoms of pituitary tumor? Let's take a look.

Symptoms of late stage pituitary tumors:

1. Hormone changes: Various types of secretory adenomas can secrete excessive hormones, which can cause different symptoms of hyperendocrine hyperfunction in the early stages. Non-secreting adenomas can compress and destroy anterior pituitary cells, resulting in a decrease in troponin and corresponding target cell dysfunction, which can cause clinical symptoms of endocrine hypofunction. A few cases of endocrine adenomas can also cause hypopituitarism in the late stages of the disease.

2. Proximal symptoms: caused by the pituitary tumor growing outside the sella turcica and compressing adjacent structures.

3. Symptoms of optic nerve compression: The upward growth of the pituitary tumor can raise the diaphragm sellae or break through the diaphragm sellae to compress the optic nerve chiasm upward, causing changes in vision and visual field.

4. Headache: About 2/3 of patients with non-secretory pituitary tumors may have headaches, but they are not too serious. The tumor grows into the third ventricle and blocks the interventricular foramen, causing increased intracranial pressure, which can cause diffuse headaches. Sometimes intratumoral bleeding or tumor cyst rupture can cause acute and severe headaches.

5. Visual impairment: When the intracranial pressure increases, the venous blood return of the eyeball will be blocked, leading to congestion and edema, damaging the visual cells on the retina of the fundus, and causing decreased vision.

6. Mental abnormalities: Brain tumors located in the frontal lobe of the brain can destroy the mental activities of the frontal lobe, causing abnormal mental manifestations such as excitement, agitation, depression, repression, amnesia, and fabrication.

Don’t ignore the occurrence of pituitary tumors. This is a common disease. In daily life, many patients will experience headaches, which seriously affect the patient’s physical health. We need to pay attention to this situation to avoid compression of the optic nerve and cause blindness in patients. Such harmful consequences are serious and affect physical and mental health.