Active clinical trials for "Pituitary Diseases"

The surgical treatment strategy for giant invasive pituitary adenoma is one of the current hot spots in the field of clinical research on pituitary adenoma. A comprehensive literature search resulted in numerous previous studies to investigate the efficacy, advantages and disadvantages of different surgical options. A single approach (transnasal or craniotomy) is theoretically less invasive and has a shorter hospital stay for the patient, but may result in postoperative bleeding due to residual tumor and damage to the intracranial vessels adhering to the tumor. The advantage of the combined approach is that the tumor can be removed to the greatest extent possible. In addition, postoperative suprasellar hemorrhage can be prevented by careful hemostasis or intracranial drainage by the transcranial team if necessary. In this way, the risk of postoperative bleeding due to residual tumor can be significantly reduced. In some cases, waiting a few months after the initial surgery for a second-stage procedure may also be an option when the patient's condition does not allow for a combined access procedure, when the tumor is hard, or when the blood preparation is insufficient. However, staged surgery increases the financial burden on the patient, and local scar formation may make second-stage surgery more difficult and decrease the likelihood of endocrine remission of functional pituitary tumors. Given the complexity of the treatment of giant invasive pituitary adenoma, there is a need to conduct studies comparing the combined transnasal cranial approach, the single access transnasal or cranial approach, and the staged approach simultaneously to assess whether the combined transnasal cranial approach is superior to the single access transnasal or cranial approach or the staged approach in improving the tumor resection rate in giant invasive pituitary adenoma.

Perioperative pain relief during endoscopic transsphenoidal pituitary surgery is generally treated with opioids either morphine sulfate or fentanyl. This study will compare the traditional method of intravenous fentanyl to the bilateral infraorbital nerve block in adult patients scheduled for pituitary surgery by the transsphenoidal approach.

This project is the first comprehensive prospective study of clinically non-functioning pituitary adenomas (CNFAs). Two groups of subjects will be studied: Group I will consist of 100 patients with clinically non-functioning (CNF) pituitary lesions who are asymptomatic and do not require surgery; Group II will consist of 250 patients who have pituitary lesions that are symptomatic and require surgery. Patients will be followed with a series of endocrine laboratory testing, physical examinations, testing of quality of life and neurocognitive function before and serially over time either during non-surgical management or after surgery and in some patients before and after radiotherapy (RT). Data on pituitary magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies and visual field testing being done over time during follow up as part of clinical care will be collected.

Refractory pituitary adenoma is characterized by invasive tumor growth, continuous growth and/or hormone hypersecretion in spite of standardized multi-modal treatment such as surgeries, medications or radiations. Quality of life or even lives are threatened by these tumors. According to the 2017 World Health Organization's new classification guideline of pituitary adenoma, patients have to suffer from symptoms or complications caused by these tumors, to bear a heavy financial burden, and to accept additional therapeutic side effects when the diagnosis of "refractory pituitary adenoma" is made. If refractory pituitary adenoma could be predicted at early stage, these patients would be able to have a more frequent clinical follow-up, receive multiple effective treatment as early as possible, or even be enrolled in clinical trials of investigational medications, so as to prevent or delay the recurrence or persistent of the tumor growth. Therefore, the unmet clinical need falls into an early prediction system for refractory pituitary adenomas, which could provide accurate guidance for subsequent treatment in the early stage. The investigators have constructed a pituitary adenoma database including clinical data, radiological images, pathological images and genetic information. The investigators are proposing a study using machine learning to extract features from these multi-dimensional, multi-omics data, which could be further used to train a prediction model for the risk of refractory pituitary adenoma. The proposed model would also be validated in another prospectively collected database. The established model would be able to identify potential medication targets and provide guidance for personalized therapy of refractory pituitary adenoma.

Prospective and randomized evaluate efficiency and safety of different treatment strategies for hypothalamus-invading pituitary adenomas (HIPA)

The research is aimed at identifying new predisposition genes for endocrine tumours. Our focus initially is on pituitary adenomas including growth hormone-secreting tumors (somatotrophinomas) and prolactin secreting tumours (prolactinomas), but we wish to extend work to other pituitary tumour cases/families. The recruitment process will be as follows. We will recruit patients from our own Endocrine outpatient clinics and inpatient wards. In addition we will ask colleagues in other Endocrinology Departments (or other specialties such as Clinical Genetics,Pathology, General Medicine ) to identify potentially suitable patients with endocrine & pituitary tumours from their records. We shall focus on patients with good evidence of inheritance of their condition: relatively early onset; or multiple lesions; or other affected family members. Conditions where the predisposing genes have been identified (principally MEN) will be excluded from study. Patients directly contacting us can also enter the study. The Consultant looking after the patient will contact the patient to initially inform him/her of the study. We will then contact the patient (generally by telephone) to discuss the study and what it would entail in terms of information and samples. Subject to agreement in (3), patient will receive 'Information Sheet for patients with pituitary tumour' and 'Consent Form' and will have blood sampling in Consultant's clinic. We will contact additional family members (if appropriate) after an initial approach by the family member already recruited to the study. The additional family members may have developed tumours similar to those of the proband, or may be unaffected individuals who provide useful information for gene identification purposes (for example, spouses may greatly aid the power of gene mapping by linkage. They will receive the "Information Sheet for family members". analysis). 8. Archival tissue will be obtained from HTA licensed tissue banks. This is an established bank whose licence is primarily for diagnosis but can be used for research. 9. We will undertake laboratory work, such as genetic linkage analysis, candidate gene mutation screening and studies of loss of heterozygosity in tumours, to identify the genes predisposing to the condition, such as the AIP gene. In addition we would like to screen other genes related to the chaperon AIP molecule, such as AhR, and other genes currently identified (PDE4A5, survivin and Tom20 protein) or may not been identified. Blood samples for DNA and RNA will coded with unique ID numbers. Pituitary and other endocrine tumour samples will be collected at surgery and kept in liquid nitrogen or -80 C. They will be coded with unique ID numbers. Candidate gene sequencing will be performed in the Barts and the London Medical School Genome Centre. RNA expression studies from blood or adenoma tissue samples will be performed by RT-PCR. Protein expression studies will be performed by Western blotting or immunohistochemistry. The first gene we wish to study causes familial acromegaly, a disease resulting from a pituitary adenoma secreting growth hormone. To establish if the candidate gene is also causing possibly sporadic (not familial) cases of the disease, samples (blood and tissue) will be collected from patients with sporadic disease and will be analysed as above.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether radiotherapy combined with Temozolomide is more effective than radiotherapy alone in the treatment of patients with refractory pituitary adenomas. The Basic treatment was Radiotherapy over a period of six weeks, for a total dose of 54 Gy. The150 participants were randomized to use either radiotherapy plus Temozolomide (75 mg per square meter of body-surface area per day, 7 days per week from the first to the last day of radiotherapy), or radiotherapy plus placebo for 6 weeks. After a 4-week break, followed by six cycles of placebo or adjuvant temozolomide (150 to 200 mg per square meter for 5 days during each 28-day cycle). The primary end point was Objective Response rate, the second end point was PFS. Greater response was anticipated in patients treated with Temozolomide+ radiotherapy than radiotherapy alone.

Pituitary adenomas are usually benign monoclonal neoplasms caused by a mixture of pituicyte alterations together with a changed endocrine and paracrine regulatory milieu. Thus, it can cause serious health problems such as abnormal target organ function, pain, disability and even death. In clinical practice, we found many patients with pituitary adenomas are usually accompanied by hyperlipidemia, which is the main cause of cardiovascular diseases. However, it has been unclear if there is an association between pituitary adenomas and serum lipid profile. In the present study, we aim to focus on the patients with pituitary adenomas and their lipid profile before and after operation including first occurrence and recurrence.

Prolonged circulatory shock is associated with marked disturbances in vascular supply to the brain, and endothelial dysfunction which can lead to disseminated intravascular coagulation and microvascular thrombosis. Pituitary dysfunction is documented following post-partum hemorrhage, traumatic brain injury and subarachnoid hemorrhage, which also affect blood flow to the pituitary. However, there are no studies assessing pituitary function in the aftermath of recovery from shock. This will be a prospective observational study of patients admitted in Critical Care Medicine (CCM) ICU who have recovered from prolonged septic shock (Lasting for a period of > 24 hours). Blood samples of the participants will be estimated at the time of discharge from the ICU and at 6 months post discharge. Investigators will estimate fasting serum cortisol, TSH, Free T4, Testosterone (in males), Oestrogen (in females), LH, FSH, Prolactin, IGF-1 and plasma ACTH in all participants at both time points (at the time of ICU discharge and at 6-months follow-up). Participants who have borderline serum cortisol values (138-400 nmol/l) will be subjected to 250ug ACTH stimulation test. Expected outcome of the proposed study is to know proportion of patients having pituitary hormone axis dysfunction. Investigators will also look for pituitary dysfunction persist or revert, or there are new onset dysfunction at 6 month follow up. This would have major implications in the follow up and management of ICU survivors.

Modulation of the GIP System in Patients With Acromegaly Due to a Pituitary adenoma