Quality of life in patients with pituitary tumors.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Quality of life (QoL) is impaired in patients with pituitary tumors, even after biochemical cure. However, it is not usually assessed in daily practice. The aim of this study is to highlight recent findings on QoL in the different types of pituitary adenomas and hypopituitarism.

RECENT FINDINGS: Patients with acromegaly or Cushing's syndrome have the greatest impairment of QoL, and concomitant hypopituitarism worsens it further. The use of disease-generated QoL questionnaires allows dimensions specifically affected in that disease to be addressed and these dimensions are more sensitive to change after successful therapy; in some cases, improvement in patients' sense of well-being has been shown despite no hormonal change, indicating that evaluation of QoL is not such a soft end-point as thought by some.

SUMMARY: Systematic evaluation of QoL in patients with pituitary diseases provides information not always contemplated by hormonal and routine clinical evaluation; this allows detection of not often contemplated health problems, which may then be approached and treated, improving the care provided to these patients.