Background: A pituitary tumor can be reached by a transsphenoidal approach with the use of a microscope or an endoscope. The impact of the surgical technique on the patient's quality of life (QOL) is of great interest to us. Currently, the development of both surgical techniques, especially the endoscopic one, is very rapid. Treatment outcomes are extremely important, especially in terms of patients' QOL after pituitary tumor resection, irrespective of the technical aspects.
Objectives: To compare the quality of life between patients who had undergone either transsphenoidal microscopic (MTS) or endoscopic (ETS) non-functioning pituitary adenoma resection.
Material and methods: The study population consisted of 32 consecutive patients (21 for the endoscopic and 11 for the microscopic method) who had undergone pituitary adenoma resection. Their QOL was evaluated using the World Health Organization's Quality of Life assessment tool (WHOQOL-BREF), the Sino-Nasal Outcome Test (SNOT-22) and the Visual Functioning Questionnaire (VFQ-25). Questionnaires were collected before and after surgery during the patients' hospital stay and 3 months after the surgery.
Results: The patients in the 2 groups did not differ significantly in terms of age, sex, tumor size, length of hospital stay, or QOL before the surgery. Vision-related QOL (VR-QOL) significantly improved in patients undergoing endoscopic surgery (p < 0.001). There were no statistically significant differences in QOL between the study groups at any stage of the trial (p > 0.05). Significantly more patients had improved QOL after endoscopic surgery according to the WHOQOL-BREF (p = 0.005) and the VFQ-25 (p = 0.002).
Conclusions: The novel observation in this study is the significant improvement of VR-QOL in patients after endoscopic non-functioning pituitary adenoma resection in comparison to patients having microscopic resection. The microscopic method does not exacerbate rhinological symptoms more than the endoscopic one. Endoscopic surgery seems to be more beneficial for patients with pituitary adenoma, which deteriorates VR-QOL.
Keywords: health-related quality of life; microsurgery; neuroendoscopy; pituitary adenoma; transsphenoidal approach.