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Primary empty sella: differences and similarities between children and adults
Author(s) -
Zucchini S,
Ambrosetto P,
Carla' G,
Tani G,
Franzoni E,
Cacciari E
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
acta pædiatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/j.1651-2227.1995.tb13574.x
Subject(s) - empty sella syndrome , medicine , hypopituitarism , endocrine system , anterior pituitary , etiology , sella turcica , pituitary gland , delayed puberty , growth hormone deficiency , kallmann syndrome , endocrinology , magnetic resonance imaging , hormone , growth hormone , surgery , radiology , disease , covid-19 , infectious disease (medical specialty)
To identify possible differences between empty sella in children and adults we studied 43 subjects (age 13.6 ±5.4 years, range 4.1–27 years) with hypothalamic‐pituitary disorders and empty sella at magnetic resonance imaging. Pituitary function, presence of non‐endocrine symptoms, perinatal history, sellar volume, pituitary height, midline or intrasellar anatomical abnormalities were evaluated. Twenty subjects had isolated growth hormone deficiency, 17 multiple pituitary hormone deficiency and 6 puberty disorders (3 precocious puberty, 2 idiopathic delayed puberty, 1 Kallmann syndrome). The group with multiple pituitary hormone deficiency had a higher percentage of subjects with complete empty sella, i.e pituitary height < 2 mm (p = 0.016), or intrasellar anatomical abnormalities (p = 0.0002) than the other groups. The subjects with puberty disorders had a mean sellar volume higher than the other groups (p < 0.05). Apart from pituitary dysfunction, symptoms of the empty sella syndrome were infrequent (9.3% of cases) in our subjects. The age of our subjects, the frequent association between empty sella and pituitary dwarfism and the non‐enlarged sellae suggest a different aetiology, perhaps congenital, for empty sella in our subjects. As in adults, empty sella may be associated with both pituitary hypo‐ and hyperfunction.