1812 CMAJ, November 6, 2012, 184(16) © 2012 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors A67-year-old woman with treated hypertension presented with headache, vomiting, light sensitivity and partial loss of vision. On examination, she had a temperature of 38.4°C and left temporal hemianopia. Her examination was otherwise unremarkable. Investigations showed a C-reactive protein level of 295 (no...

The pituitary apoplexy is a rare and fatal complication of the pituitary adenoma; it represents 0.6 to 10%. This is a clinical syndrome resulting from a fulminant pituitary expansion due to a bleeding and\or a pituitary infarcissement. We report the case of a 29-year-old patient who consults for an amenorrhoea with spontaneous galactorrhea and chronic headaches evolving over 7 months. The balan...

Pituitary apoplexy is a clinical syndrome of sudden headache and visual decline associated with acute hemorrhagic or ischemic change of an intrasellar mass, and comprises only a subset of hemorrhagic pituitary lesions. The most common presenting symptoms include headache, nausea, diminished visual acuity or visual field, ophthalmoplegia/paresis, and impaired mental status. Multiple risk factors...

Pituitary tumor apoplexy is a medical emergency due to acute infarction or hemorrhage in the pituitary gland. In this review, the authors discuss the sellar anatomy, the pituitary gland and adenomas' vascularization and the general aspects of the syndrome such as its ethiopatogenesis, predisposing factors, clinical features, treatment and prognosis.

A 75-year-old lady presented with sudden severe headache and vomiting. Examination was normal, and CT and lumbar puncture not convincing for subarachnoid haemorrhage. Shortly thereafter, she developed painless diplopia. Examination confirmed right third cranial nerve palsy plus homonymous left inferior quadrantanopia. Urgent cerebral MRI with angiography was requested to assess for a possible p...

We present the first Asian case of a 77-year-old man who developed pituitary apoplexy (PA) soon after gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist (GnRHa) (leuprorelin) injection to treat prostate cancer. Headache, ophthalmoplegia, visual field deficit, nausea, and vomiting are the typical characteristics of pituitary apoplexy. Though the occurrence rate is rare, the consequence of this condition can...

Pituitary tuberculoma is extremely rare, even in endemic regions of tuberculosis and much less frequently as a presentation of pituitary apoplexy. We describe a 25-year-old female presented with sudden onset of headache and vision loss of left eye which mimicking symptoms of pituitary apoplexy. MRI of the pituitary gland showed a rim-enhancing lesion at the intrasellar region extending into the...