Pituitary Gland Enlargement Was First Diagnosed by Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT)

Dr. S.S. Michel Clinic

Status

Completed

Conditions

Pituitary Mass

Diagnoses Disease

Treatments

Diagnostic Test: Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT)

Study type

Observational

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT03087682

Pituitary gland enlargement

Details and patient eligibility

About

OCT is now an established way to measure the thickness of the Retinal Nerve Fiber Layer (RNFL) in the retina of the eye. The thickness of the RNFL is always a reflection of the number of the RNFs in any particular area of the retina. Each single RNF runs a long course starting from the cell body which is the retinal ganglion cell in the retina and ends in the thalamus of the brain where it relays visual information to other nerve cell in the thalamus. Along this long course RNFs are in close anatomical relationship with the pituitary gland crossing just above this gland about midway along their course. Hence enlargement of this gland can interfere with the RNFs.

Full description

The inferior chiasmal syndrome is known to be caused by pituitary gland enlightenment because the pituitary gland lies just below the optic chiasma. The visual RNFs are organized in a very specific way along their long course from the retina to the Lateral Geniculate Body (LGB) in the thalamus. Pituitary enlargement would compromise particular RNFs. It is well known and established that pituitary enlargement, if not properly treated in time, would possibly cause bitemporal hemianopia due to interference with the crossing RNFs of the nasal half of each retina. In this study pituitary enlargement was suspected by OCT findings while the patient still had perfect peripheral visual field in each eye.

Enrollment

2 patients

Sex

All

Ages

15 to 65 years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria