Predictors of short-term outcomes following endoscopic pituitary surgery.

Overview

OBJECTIVE: Refinement of endoscopic pituitary surgery requires an understanding of the impact of demographic and surgical variables on outcomes. METHODS: Multivariate logistic regression and ANOVA models were used to explore variables for association with outcomes in a consecutive series of 57 patients undergoing endoscopic pituitary surgery. RESULTS: The mean duration of surgery was 177 min and was longer in patients with larger tumor size (p=0.03) and presentation with visual symptoms (p=0.02) in univariate analyses. The median duration of hospitalization was 3 days and was longer in patients with larger tumors (p=0.0005). Gross tumor removal was achieved in 89%. Tumor size correlated with extent of tumor removal with an almost 3-fold decrease in complete tumor removal for every 1cm increase in tumor size (p=0.047). High rates of hormonal control (90%) and improvement in visual symptoms (92%) were noted. CONCLUSIONS: High rates of gross tumor removal, hormonal cure and visual field improvement were noted in this series. Markers including tumor size and visual symptoms may be used to stratify patients.