Are patients with pituitary adenomas at an increased risk of mental disorders?

Abstract

Objective: Retrospective clinical studies suggest that patients with pituitary adenoma (PA) have an increased risk of mental disorders. However, empirical evidence for this hypothesis is deficient because of out‐dated methodology. Therefore, we investigated the occurrence of mental disorders in 93 patients with PA within a limited time frame of 2 years. Method: Patients were subjected to a comprehensive, standardized lifetime and cross‐sectional psychopathological symptom and diagnostic assessment, including an evaluation of psychosocial conditions and life events (CIDI, SCL‐90) during the past years. Results: We could not find an increased risk of mental disorders as compared with a representative population sample of 481 subjects matched by age and gender. Conclusion: As for our random sample, neither suffering from any type of PA nor the extent of the pituitary deficiency represent factors having significant effect on the risk of the subject to develop psychopathology as compared with the general population.