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Surgical complications after transsphenoidal microscopic and endoscopic surgery for pituitary adenoma: a consecutive series of 506 procedures

  • Clinical Article - Brain Tumors
  • Published:
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Abstract

Background

This single-institution, consecutive series of transsphenoidal procedures included all patients in a defined population of 2.6 million inhabitants who underwent surgery during a specific time period.

Objective

We sought to determine the surgical complication rate and overall survival rate after transsphenoidal surgery for pituitary adenoma.

Methods

All transsphenoidal procedures for histologically verified pituitary adenomas performed between September 2002 and February 2011 at our institution were included in this study. The data were obtained from a prospectively collected database and from reviewing medical records. No patients were lost to follow-up, and the median follow-up time was 28 months.

Results

A total of 506 transsphenoidal procedures were performed on 446 patients. There were 268 microscopic and 238 endoscopic procedures involving 352 non-functioning and 154 hormone-secreting adenomas. A total of 73 % of the procedures were primary surgeries, and 27 % were repeat surgeries for tumor recurrence. The overall complication rate was 9.1 %. The three most frequent complications were cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leakage (4.7 %), meningitis (2 %), and visual deterioration (2 %). Multivariate analyses showed that the overall risk for complications increased with older age, surgery for recurrent tumors, and surgery performed by a low-volume surgeon. There was no significant difference in the overall complication rate between the microsurgical and endoscopic techniques. The rate of surgical mortality was 0.6 %, and the overall survival rates at 1 and 5 years were 95 % and 90 %, respectively. The only negative predictor of survival was older age.

Conclusions

Transsphenoidal surgery for pituitary adenomas has a low complication rate and a low rate of mortality. We did not find a significant difference in the complication rate between endoscopic and microscopic techniques.

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Conflicts of interest

The authors have no personal financial or institutional interest in any of the drugs, materials, or devices described in this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Helene Halvorsen, Jon Berg-Johnsen, Jens Bollerslev & Eirik Helseth

  2. Department of Neurosurgery, Oslo University Hospital, 0027, Oslo, Norway

    Jon Ramm-Pettersen, Roger Josefsen, Pål Rønning, Sissel Reinlie, Torstein Meling, Jon Berg-Johnsen & Eirik Helseth

  3. Department of Endocrinology, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway

    Jens Bollerslev

Authors
  1. Helene Halvorsen
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  2. Jon Ramm-Pettersen
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  3. Roger Josefsen
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  4. Pål Rønning
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  5. Sissel Reinlie
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  9. Eirik Helseth
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jon Ramm-Pettersen.

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Comment

Transsphenoidal pituitary surgery is very safe—almost certainly the safest major intracranial procedure. This careful analysis of complications absolutely confirms this.

Michael Powell

London, UK

Helene Halvorsen and Jon Ramm-Pettersen contributed equally to the publication and should be regarded as joint-first authors.

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Halvorsen, H., Ramm-Pettersen, J., Josefsen, R. et al. Surgical complications after transsphenoidal microscopic and endoscopic surgery for pituitary adenoma: a consecutive series of 506 procedures. Acta Neurochir 156, 441–449 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00701-013-1959-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00701-013-1959-7

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