The Role of Irradiation in Hypophyseal Adenoma

Pituitary adenomas are histopathologically benign, however the clinical presentations are often quite severe. These clinical signs are due to the tumor mass effect, hormonal disturbances or both. Besides that, these tumors often recurred after treatment. The treatment of pituitary tumors have developed greatly with the improvement of techniques of several modalities such as surgery, radiation and medication. Multimodality treatment is often used for optimal results in treating these tumors. Radiotherapy is a cytotoxic agent using ion radiation for the treatment of pituitary tumors in combination with other methods. Post-surgical radiotherapy has shown to decrease the recurrence rate significantly (22-71% vs 8-23%). At present there has been rapid improvements in radiation techniques for pituitary tumors. These developments are not only based upon the increase of know-how in computer technology and radiation instruments, but are also based upon the development of cellular and molecular biology in connection with normal and tumor tissues. The objective in developing radiation methods and techniques is to create a high radiation dose, homogeneous in the target area with low radiation dose in normal tissue. The development in science and technology, in particular concerning computer science, have created the development of radiation techniques and methods. This paper elaborates on several aspects of radiation in the treatment of pituitary.