Management of nonfunctioning pituitary tumors: radiotherapy

Abstract

External beam radiotherapy (RT) is an essential part of the management of intracranial tumors and has been used in treating pituitary adenomas for more than five decades. It has been demonstrated that conventional RT for postoperative residual or progressive nonfunctioning pituitary adenomas (NFAs) present an excellent long-term local tumor control, although its use has been limited because of the potential late toxicity related to radiation treatments. Recent advances in radiation techniques have led to more accurate treatments, rendering obsolete many commonly held views of the "old" radiotherapy. New techniques include intensity modulated radiotherapy, volumetric-modulated arc therapy, and stereotactic techniques, either stereotactic radiosurgery or fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy. New techniques allow the delivering of higher radiation doses to the target with rapid dose fall-off in the surrounding normal tissues, and potentially limiting the long term toxicity of radiation. In this review, we present a critical analysis of the most recent available literature on the use of radiation in patients with NFAs, focusing particularly on the efficacy and safety of radiation stereotactic techniques.

Keywords: Fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy; Hypopituitarism; Local control; Nonfunctioning pituitary adenoma; Radiosurgery; Survival.