Diagnosis:
1. Clinical manifestations
Patient's age, sex, post-illness discomfort and physical changes.
2. Endocrine examination
Because most pituitary adenomas have the function of secreting hormones, the clinical manifestations are not obvious, and imaging can not suggest that hormones change when pituitary adenomas have tumors. Some cases of pituitary adenoma can be simply diagnosed by endocrine examination.
3. Imaging
(1) X-ray plain film of the head, which is a relatively primitive diagnostic method. According to the changes of sella turcica bone and calcification of sella turcica area, we can judge and distinguish whether there is tumor or not.
(2)CT scan has diagnostic value only for large pituitary adenomas, while small pituitary adenomas are easy to be missed. It can not be used as the main tool to diagnose pituitary adenoma.
(3)MRI is the most important tool to diagnose pituitary adenoma, which can clearly show the size, shape and location of the tumor and its relationship with surrounding structures. Even tumors with a diameter of 2 ~ 3 mm can be displayed. However, the signals of some tumors are similar to those of the surrounding normal pituitary tissues, so it is difficult to distinguish them, and it is necessary to combine clinical manifestations and endocrine examination to make a diagnosis.
4. Pathological examination
This is the most reliable diagnostic method, and the misdiagnosis rate is very low. Pathological diagnosis can be divided into ordinary sections and observed by HE staining under light microscope, which can only be used as a general diagnosis and cannot distinguish tumor types. Immunohistochemical staining, according to the hormones contained in tumor cells, has high sensitivity, but the misdiagnosis rate is also high. Electron perspective microscope observation, according to the different characteristics of tumor cells to distinguish tumor types, is rarely used in clinic.