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Intensity of prolactinoma on T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging: towards another gender difference

  • Diagnostic Neuroradiology
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Abstract

Introduction

Clinical presentations of prolactinomas are quite different between genders. In comparison with women’s prolactinoma, those in men showed predominance of large tumors with high prolactin (PRL) levels. This preponderance could be attributed to a greater proliferative potential of the tumors.

Differences in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) signal at diagnosis have not been yet clearly evaluated.

Methods

We conduct a retrospective study comparing MRI signal intensity (SI) on T2-weighted images (T2-WI) between 41 men and 41 women to investigate whether or not men prolactinoma present specific features.

Results

In addition to the size of the adenoma and PRL levels (P < 0001), prolactinomas in men also exhibit differences from those in women in signal on T2-WI on MRI (P < 0001). Women’s prolactinomas are mostly of high SI on T2-WI while men’s prolactinomas exhibit a more heterogeneous pattern of SI on T2-WI. Prolactinomas presenting with low SI on T2-WI are almost exclusively encountered in men.

Conclusions

Presence of T2-WI hypointensities in pituitary adenoma can be predictive of a different subtype of prolactinoma almost encountered in men and possibly translate the presence of spherical amyloid deposits, in agreement with the literature.

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Ethical standards and patient consent

We declare that all human studies have been approved by the comité d’Ethique hospitalo-facultaire du CHU de Liège, Belgique and have therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments. Patient consent was waived due to the retrospective nature of this study.

Conflict of interest

We declare that we have no conflict of interest.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, University Hospital Sart-Tilman, Liège, Belgium

    Julie Kreutz, Luaba Tshibanda & Jean-François Bonneville

  2. Department of Endocrinology, University Hospital Sart-Tilman, Liège, Belgium

    Laurent Vroonen, Patrick Petrossians, Liliya Rostomyan, Albert Beckers & Jean-François Bonneville

  3. Department of Radiology, University Hospital Besançon, Besançon, France

    Francoise Cattin

  4. Department of Pathology, University Hospital Sart-Tilman, Liège, Belgium

    Albert Thiry

  5. Service d’Imagerie Médicale, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège, Domaine Universitaire du Sart Tilman, Batiment B 35, 4000, Liège, Belgium

    Julie Kreutz

Authors
  1. Julie Kreutz
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  2. Laurent Vroonen
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  3. Francoise Cattin
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  4. Patrick Petrossians
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  7. Luaba Tshibanda
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  8. Albert Beckers
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  9. Jean-François Bonneville
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Julie Kreutz.

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Kreutz, J., Vroonen, L., Cattin, F. et al. Intensity of prolactinoma on T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging: towards another gender difference. Neuroradiology 57, 679–684 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00234-015-1519-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00234-015-1519-3

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