Surgical treatments for 7 pituitary adenomas in multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1

We analyzed 7 pituitary adenomas in patients with multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN1). Their incidence was 1.6% among 450 patients with pituitary adenomas which had been treated surgically in our department between 1978 and 1999. The age, gender, symptoms, type of hormone secretion, pathological and operative findings in the MEN1 patients were not apparently different from those in the non-MEN1 patients. Incidence of non-functioning pituitary adenomas, however, was more frequently encountered in our series than that in previous reports among Caucasian people. One patient who had 5 previous operations for the MEN tumors died following postoperative subarachnoid hemorrhage. Four of the seven patients presented initial symptoms related to pituitary adenomas and increased serum Ca level was retrospectively recognized in three of the four at the time of treatment for the pituitary adenomas.