A Pituitary Carcinoma Patient With Cerebrospinal Fluid Dissemination Showing a Good Response to Temozolomide Combined With Whole-Brain and Spinal Cord Radiotherapy: A Case Report and Literature Review

Peng Du; Xuefan Wu; Kun Lv; Ji Xiong; Daoying Geng

doi:10.3389/fonc.2022.890458

A Pituitary Carcinoma Patient With Cerebrospinal Fluid Dissemination Showing a Good Response to Temozolomide Combined With Whole-Brain and Spinal Cord Radiotherapy: A Case Report and Literature Review

Front Oncol. 2022 Jul 12:12:890458. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2022.890458. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Peng Du^{1

2}, Xuefan Wu³, Kun Lv¹, Ji Xiong⁴, Daoying Geng^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiology, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
² Center for Shanghai Intelligent Imaging for Critical Brain Diseases Engineering and Technology Research, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
³ Department of Radiology, Shanghai Gamma Hospital, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
⁴ Department of Pathology, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

Pituitary carcinoma (PC) is extremely rare, with its incidence only accounting for 0.1%-0.2% of pituitary tumor (PT). Existing histological features, including invasiveness, cellular pleomorphism, nuclear atypia, mitosis, necrosis, etc., can be observed in pituitary adenoma (PA), invasive PA (IPA) and PC. Invasion is not the basis for the diagnosis of PC. The diagnosis of PC is often determined after the metastases are found, hence early diagnosis is extraordinarily difficult. Owing to the conventional treatment for PC may not be effective, a large portion of patients survived less than one year after diagnosis. Therefore, it is of great significance to find an efficacious treatment for PC. We report a rare case of sparsely granulated somatotroph carcinoma with cerebrospinal fluid dissemination showing a favorable treatment response to temozolomide (TMZ) combined with whole-brain and spinal cord radiotherapy.

Keywords: case report; pituitary adenoma; pituitary carcinoma; pituitary tumor; temozolomide; whole-brain and spinal cord radiotherapy.

Publication types

Case Reports