History of Treatment of Pineal Tumors

Pineal gland for a long time aroused the interest of scholars' philosophical and religious current of thought.Its history started in China in 2697 BC and in the Indu culture it was considered the centre of spiritual forces or the centre of vital energy. Herophilus (325-280) studied the pineal gland with anatomical dissection and considered the gland as the valve that permitted the flow of the vital "pnuema."Descartes (1596-1650), a French philosopher, gave a great impulsion to the studies on the role of the pineal gland. The location of the soul in the pineal gland was again proposed as it acts in the control of the human body. The human intellectual soul was characterized by the immortality, the free will, and the reason that characterize the power of imagination, the intellectual elaboration, and the faculty of commemoration, respectively.Ahlborn and Rabl-Ruckhardt (1839-1906) showed the similarity between the nonmammalian pineal gland and the primary optic vesicles. The visual function of the pineal gland was reported also by Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891) and a new era for its role started.In 1958 the hormone of the gland, the melatonin, was discovered by Lerner. Successively it demonstrated a variability of the production of the hormone in function of the exposition to light or dark and the implication in the control of the circadian rhythm. The theory of function of the internal clock of the pineal and the control of the circadian rhythm of an organism began to take form.At the same time the classification of the pineal tumor started and the first surgical approaches were proposed. The development of anesthesiology and the surgical tools in the last years permitted to make surgery accessible for patients reducing the rate of sequels and mortality.To know the "history" of the pineal gland and of pineal tumors, treatment permits to understand the evolution and the development of ideas concerning the diagnosis and treatment of these rare tumors.