Medical treatment of functional pituitary tumors

Cases of pituitary tumors are not unusual in medical wards or clinics. Over half of these cases are functional pituitary tumors. During recent years, with the elucidation of the secretion mechanism of functional pituitary tumors and the molecular structures of receptors and agonists, many new drugs were developed as antagonists of pituitary tumors. In the past decade, doctors of internal medicine played more important roles in the treatment of functional pituitary tumors. Medical treatment was considered as the first line of treatment for prolactinomas. For patients with functional pituitary tumors, preoperative functional evaluation, complete recording of clinical presentation, neurological examination, and complete imaging studies are important before treatment. Measurement of baseline hormone levels and dynamic functional evaluation before and after medical or surgical treatments are important. Therapeutic goals for functional pituitary tumors are alleviation of tumor mass effects and maintenance of normal pituitary functions in the patients.