Open AccessA tale of many tumors and one endocrine site: A case series of pituitary metastases
Author(s) -
Zeinab Dabbous,
Muna Mohamed,
Silas Benjamin,
Fiona Green,
Salman Hassoun,
Tarik Elhadd
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
qatar medical journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.171
H-Index - 9
eISSN - 2227-0426
pISSN - 0253-8253
DOI - 10.5339/qmj.2021.38
Subject(s) - medicine , diabetes insipidus , presentation (obstetrics) , incidence (geometry) , pituitary gland , endocrine system , autopsy , cancer , metastatic breast cancer , lung cancer , lung , series (stratigraphy) , adenocarcinoma , metastasis , pathology , breast cancer , oncology , radiology , hormone , paleontology , physics , biology , optics
Background: Metastases to the pituitary gland are extremely rare with an incidence rate reported from an autopsy series of 1.8%–12%, and only 20% was diagnosed clinically. Tumors that commonly metastasize are breast and lung tumors. Case series: We present a series of five cases, including four female patients and one male patient with metastatic cancer. Two women had metastatic small lung cancer and presented with diabetes insipidus (DI). Two women had metastatic breast cancer, of which one presented with DI and the other with panhypopituitarism. The male patient had bronchogenic adenocarcinoma and presented with DI. Conclusion: Our case series confirmed earlier reports that DI is the most common presentation of metastases to the pituitary gland.