[Idiopathic granulomatous hypophysitis. Morphological and immunohistochemical study of a case]

Fatal juvenile xanthogranuloma presenting as a sellar lesion: case report and literature review

INTRODUCTION

Juvenile xanthogranuloma (JXG) is a histiocytic condition in the spectrum of non-Langerhans histiocytosis that preferentially affects children. Rarely this condition can involve the central nervous system (CNS) with devastating consequences.

METHODS

The authors report the unique case of an 11-year-old child who initially presented with a sellar lesion without evidence of the cutaneous stigmata typical of JXG. She was later discovered to have JXG following initial diagnosis of granulomatous hypophysitis, with development of widespread intracranial disease and subsequent neurological deterioration. She underwent subtotal resection of her sellar lesion followed by whole brain radiation and systemic chemotherapy; however, she succumbed to her disseminated disease within 1 month of the JXG diagnosis.

CONCLUSIONS

This is a rare case of fatal disseminated intracranial JXG without cutaneous manifestations. Additionally, the initial presentation as a sellar lesion is particularly unusual and seldom described in the literature.

Granulomatous hypophysitis: two case reports and literature review

Granulomatous hypophysitis (GRH) is extremely rare and commonly presents with chronic inflammatory of the enlarged pituitary gland. In our study, 66-year-old and 57-year-old women, both Chinese, were diagnosed with GRH presenting preoperatively definite imageology characters as pituitary adenoma. The 66-year-old woman presented with a year of headache, half a year of gradual decrease of visual acuity, and one month of right ptosis. Serum prolactin level was slightly elevated. Screening computed tomography (CT) scanning revealed typical low density mass found on the enlarged sella, which demonstrated invasive extension from the sella to the right cavernous sinus by contrast enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Consequently, the patient was diagnosed with probable invasive pituitary adenoma. The other 57-year-old woman complained a light headache and had been previously treated as nonfunctional pituitary adenoma in other hospital. Finally these two patients underwent transsphenoidal microsurgery and were diagnosed with GRH according to postoperative histopathology. They then were treated with steroid. During the follow-up, the clinical symptoms such as headache, visual damage, and ptosis vanished, and the mass of the sellae dramatically shrank on repeated MR images. Clinically and radiologically, GRH is a rare sellar entity easily to be misdiagnosed as a pituitary adenoma. Trans-sphenoidal surgery can decompress the optical nerve or oculomotornerve as a therapeutic strategy, and support biopsy or further pathological diagnosis. However, the hormonal therapy should be emphasized both as diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. Conservative and tentative steroid treatment should be performed in preoperative period without acute nerve damage.