Pituitary hyperplasia secondary to thyroid failure: CT appearance.

Abstract

Pituitary hyperplasia in response to primary end-organ failure is well established in the medical literature [1-5]. However, the role of radiology in the evaluation of this phenomenon has been explored only recently. To date, descriptions of radiographic abnormalities associated with this entity have included plain-film, tomographic , angiographic, and pneumoencephalographic findings [2-6]. Five patients evaluated with computed tomography (CT) have been reported [7-9]. In these cases , older-generation scanners and relatively thick sections were used; thus , scant data were obtained about the nature of the enhancing masses. We report two patients with pituitary hyperplasia secondary to primary hypothyroidism in whom direct coronal, enhanced CT scans demonstrated the nature of the enhancing masses initially and on followup.