Evaluation of pituitary microadenomas with dynamic MR imaging.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the use of keyhole dynamic magnetic resonance (MR) imaging in the evaluation of women with borderline hyperprolactinemia. PATIENTS and METHODS: We investigated 30 patients (mean age 31.6+/-4.3 years) with moderate hyperprolactinemia and clinically suspected microadenomas on T1-weighted spin echo (SE) sequences (repetition time (TR)/echo time (TE) 625/15 ms) with keyhole dynamic imaging and contrast enhancement of the pituitary gland. The probability of lesion presence according to MR criteria was ranked on a five-grade scale and compared with standard examinations of the hypophysis before and after intravenous administration of contrast media. RESULTS: The probability for lesion presence showed a trend toward lower scores on standard SE sequences and higher scores with dynamic imaging (P=0.067). CONCLUSION: Dynamic keyhole imaging of the pituitary gland could help establish a diagnosis of microadenomas with a higher probability.