Walsh & Hoyt: Pituitary Carcinoma

As with some other histologically benign tumors, pituitary adenomas may be locally invasive. Microscopic dural invasion confers a poorer prognosis for life, probably because it indicates the tumor was larger when detected. Macroadenomas, with the exception of gonadotroph adenomas, have a greater than 50% incidence of gross invasion. True malignancies, pituitary carcinomas, constitute only 0.10.2% of pituitary tumors. By 1996 only 64 cases had been reported in the English language literature, most of which were endocrinologically functional. In a series of five patients with silent corticotroph carcinomas, all had visual symptoms at presentation.