Surgical Outcome of Pure Endonasal Transsphenoidal Approach for Pituitary Tumors

Objective:  To determine the frequency of complete tumor excision by endoscopic skull base (transsphenoidal) approach in pituitary adenoma patients presenting to a neurosurgical department. Materials & Methods:  This descriptive case series was conducted at the Department of Neurosurgery Unit II, Lahore General Hospital Lahore from May 2019 to November 2019. The study included60 patients with pituitary adenoma from the outpatient department who qualified for the inclusion criteria. All patients went through the endoscopic binarial transsphenoidal approach for pituitary adenectomy. All patients were treated according to the department protocols and were followed for 6 weeks to determine the outcome i.e. no residual tumor left as determined by Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Results:  The mean age of pituitary adenoma patients studied was 50.02 ± 8.2 years. 43 patients (71.7%) were male.56 patients (93.3%) showed complete resection on MRI using the endoscopic binarial transsphenoidal approach. The outcome was not affected by patients' gender and age. Tumor size significantly affected the outcome i.e. complete resection. Conclusion:  It is concluded that the endoscopic skull base (transsphenoidal) approach for excision of pituitary adenomas gives desirable results as depicted by 93.3% success rate in terms of complete resection of the tumor. We did not observe a significant effect of patients' gender and age on the clinical outcome in the studied sample of the population.