[A case of anaplastic astrocytoma associated with pituitary adenoma]

A case of anaplastic astrocytoma associated with pituitary adenoma is reported. The patient was a 33-year-old male, who was admitted with complaints of sensory aphasia, slight left motor paresis, and visual field defects. Neurological examination disclosed sensory and motor aphasia, Gerstmann's syndrome, slight left motor paresis, right homonymous hemianopsia, and bilateral choked discs. Computed tomography revealed a low density mass lesion with slight enhancement in the left temporal region and a ring-like enhanced mass lesion in the suprasellar region. In MRI, both the left temporal and the suprasellar lesions are depicted as low signal intensity areas in T1 weighted imaging, but as high signal intensity areas in T2 weighted imaging. Craniotomy was performed and both tumors were almost totally removed. The tumor in the left temporal region was diagnosed as anaplastic astrocytoma and the other in the suprasellar region was diagnosed as chromophobe adenoma. Multiple primary intracranial tumors of different cell types are rare. About a hundred cases can be found in medical literature. More than two thirds of them are cases of glioma associated with meningioma, but other combinations of tumors are extremely rare. We now report this case of astrocytoma associated with pituitary adenoma. In the literature, there are only 5 cases of similar combination. It is believed that astrocytoma and pituitary adenoma are histologically different. In three of five reported cases, the tumors were in close proximity to each other, but it is doubtful that their close proximity was related to the fact that they developed concurrently.