Endoscopic Versus Microscopic Transsphenoidal Surgery for Pituitary Tumors
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Updated: Mar 13, 2026
Endoscopic Endonasal Trans-sphenoidal Approach: Minimally Invasive Surgery for Pituitary Adenomas
Published on: January 17, 2018
Huang Guo-Dong1, Ji Tao, Yang Ji-Hu
1*Department of Neurosurgery, Shenzhen Second People's Hospital, Shenzhen University First Affiliated Hospital†The Central Laboratory, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Neurosurgery, Shenzhen‡Department of Neurosurgery, Zhongshan City People's Hospital, Zhongshan, China.
Background:
To compare the clinical outcomes and complications of 247 pituitary tumor patients managed by endoscopic and microscopic approaches in our hospital.
Methods:
The authors performed a retrospective review of 100 pituitary tumor patients treated by endoscopic endonasal transsphenoidal surgery (ETS) and 147 patients treated by microscopic transsphenoidal surgery (MTS) at our center from January 2007 to July 2014. The tumors were stratified by Knosp classification and modified Hardy classification, and tumor gross total resection (GTR)/remission rate, visual improvement rate, complications, operation time, intraoperative bleeding and length of hospital stay were compared between ETS and MTS.
Results:
The GTR rate decreased with increasing Knosp grades for both ETS and MTS, with the rates of 93.3%, 87.5%, 71.4%, 58.8% for ETS and 82.8%, 92.0%, 70.7%, 36.0% for MTS in resecting Knosp grades 0, I, II, and III tumors, respectively. The visual improvement rates increased with increasing Hardy grades, which was 66.7% and 45.5% for Hardy grade B lesion, 72.2% and 71.4% for grade C lesion, and 88.9% and 78.9% for grade D lesion treated by ETS and MTS, respectively. No significant differences were observed for GTR rate, visual outcome and complication rate between ETS and MTS, while ETS resulted in more intraoperative blood loss, longer operative time, and shorter hospital stay than MTS.
Conclusions:
These data conclude that, compared with MTS, ETS needs longer operation time and results in more intraoperative blood loss, but appears to achieve higher GTR rate for Knosp grade III pituitary tumors.
