Magnetic resonance imaging in patients with hypopituitarism

In patients with hypopituitarism, magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of the hypothalamus and pituitary has disclosed a high incidence of hypoplasia of the anterior pituitary lobe, attenuation or transection of the pituitary stalk, and formation of an "ectopic" posterior pituitary lobe at the base of the hypothalamus. These anatomic abnormalities may be associated with other congenital malformations of the central nervous system, or may be due to an in utero toxic or infectious insult, perinatal trauma, neonatal asphyxia and hypoxia, head injury, or hemorrhage into a pituitary adenoma. The progressive development of defects in pituitary hormone secretion in such patients is probably due to continued atrophy of an anterior pituitary remnant with a limited vascular supply unstimulated by hypothalamic neuropeptides. By contrast, in patients with isolated hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, hypothalamic pituitary anatomy is normal, although abnormalities of the olfactory sulcus are present in patients with anosmia and hypogonadotropism (Kallmann syndrome). In most patients with central diabetes insipidus, the neurohypophysis is absent on MR scan.