Optochiasmatic syndrome from adhesive arachnoiditis with coexisting hypophyseal adenoma: case report

Adhesive arachnoiditis is an occasional finding during neurosurgical operations for pituitary adenoma, previously treated by radiation therapy. A case where an arachnoidal process was found in combination with an eosinophilic pituitary adenoma, which had never been treated by irradiation, is reported. A 44-year-old woman at the time of surgery with scarce endocrinologic symptoms had suffered visual loss from 2 episodes, 18 years apart. Analysis of her symptoms, neuro-ophthalmologic findings and neurodadiologic features suggest that her visual damage was due to an optochiasmatic arachnoiditis, rather than to the tumor itself.