Correlation between obstructive sleep apnea and pituitary function in pituitary adenomas patients.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to analyze the correlation between pituitary function and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in pituitary adenomas (PA) patients, and to investigate the effect of related hormone levels on the severity of OSA.

METHODS

The clinical data of 82 patients with PA aged 18-70 years admitted to the Department of Neurosurgery, Xi'an Jiaotong University Affiliated Hospital from March 2023 to February 2025 were retrospectively collected and divided into functional and non-functional PA group.

RESULTS

Functional PA patients were younger and had a higher platelet-lymphocyte ratio (all p < 0.05). Among the PSG related parameters, Patients with functional PA showed higher apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), total sleep time spent with arterial oxygen saturation<90 % and longest apnea duration and oxygen desaturation index with >3 % desaturation (all p < 0.01). In terms of pituitary function parameters, free triiodothyronine (FT3) and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) were significantly increased in OSA group, while the levels of cortisol, estradiol and progesterone were all lower (all p < 0.05). Correlation analysis showed that AHI was positively correlated with FT3 and IGF-1. After adjusting for confounding factors, mediation analysis based on regression revealed that FT3 and IGF-1 mediated the association between PA and OSA severity.

CONCLUSION

OSA was more severe in functional PA patients compared with non-functional PA patients. FT3 and IGF-1 are reliable predictors of AHI in PA patients, and may become important indicators for early clinical diagnosis of OSA in PA patients. Larger prospective studies are needed to further clarify the relationship between PA and OSA in the future.