Incidence of pituitary necrotic lesions in autopsy material

Pituitary necrosis is mostly a result of pituitary haemorrhage or infarct. The frequency of pituitary necrosis in the Polish population has not yet been investigated. Hence, the aim of this study was to estimate the incidence of pituitary necrotic lesions in forensic autopsy material and to assess possible correlations of pituitary necrosis with sex, age, other pituitary pathologies, endocrine disorders and atherosclerosis. Serial sections of 100 human pituitary glands stained with hematoxylin-eosin were examined microscopically. Pituitary necrosis was found in 19 cases (19%), all of them in persons aged > 40 years. The majority of the lesions had relatively large size, occupying 10-50% of the gland. According to family interviews, none of the subjects manifested any clinical symptoms related to pituitary insufficiency, hence al the detected cases can be regarded as subclinical. There was no association of pituitary necrosis occurrence with sex, other pituitary pathologies found upon autopsy, endocrine diseases or cause of death. Only correlations with age and atherosclerosis were statistically significant. This study has shown that subclinical pituitary necrosis is a relatively frequent phenomenon in elderly persons, probably resulting from age-related deterioration in the vascular status.