User Tools

Site Tools


No renderer 'pdf' found for mode 'pdf'
empty_sella_syndrome

empty sella syndrome

see also:

introduction

  • empty sella is a visual features seen in some patients on CT brain scan
  • it implies that the pituitary is either shrunken or displaced from the sella turcica by subarachnoid fluid due to raised intracranial pressure with herniation of the arachnoid space into pituitary fossa through a deficient diaphragm, found in 20% of the population
  • it is often an incidental finding but may be associated with endocrine clinical features.

aetiology

  • incidental
  • benign raised intracranial pressure hence incidence higher in females, obesity
  • pituitary infarction - Sheehan's syndrome

DDx includes local cystic lesions

  • cystic pituitary macroadenoma
    • may produce hyperprolactinaemia and galactorrhoea
  • arachnoid cyst
  • Rathke's cleft cyst
  • craniopharyngioma
  • epidermoid cyst

clinical features

  • asymptomatic
  • hypopituitarism
empty_sella_syndrome.txt · Last modified: 2014/07/23 14:43 by 127.0.0.1

Donate Powered by PHP Valid HTML5 Valid CSS Driven by DokuWiki