Posterior pituitary hematoma in a case of posttraumatic diabetes insipidus. Case report

A 28-year-old man presented with diabetes insipidus (DI) 10 days after basilar skull fracture without brain injury. Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging revealed a hematoma in the posterior lobe of the pituitary gland but no lesions in the hypothalamus or pituitary stalk. The patient's DI continued for 2 months at which time transsphenoidal surgery was performed to decompress the cystic hematoma with persistent mass effect. The DI attenuated shortly after the surgery and the patient became completely free from DI 5 months later. Although hemorrhage into the posterior lobe is one of the frequent pathological changes in fatal head-injury victims and secondary DI in these cases has usually been thought to be acute and transient, the true incidence and natural course of the posterior pituitary hemorrhage and subsequent DI in nonfatal head-injury patients are totally unknown. In this article, the authors present the first demonstration on MR imaging of a posterior pituitary hematoma in a patient with head injury. The authors propose that serial MR imaging is an important diagnostic tool in patients with posttraumatic DI because some of them may harbor pituitary hematoma and because decompression surgery may prevent transition to permanent DI, especially in cases when the mass effect is persistent due to a cystic change in the hematoma.