CNS tumor
Sellar region tumors
Pituicytoma
Author: Nat Pernick, M.D.
Topic Completed: 1 January 2006
Minor changes: 21 January 2021
Copyright: 2002-2021, PathologyOutlines.com, Inc.
PubMed Search: Pituicytoma
Table of Contents
Definition / general | Radiology description | Case reports | Treatment | Microscopic (histologic) description | Positive stains | Negative stains | Electron microscopy description | Differential diagnosis | Additional referencesCite this page: Pernick N. Pituicytoma. PathologyOutlines.com website. https://www.pathologyoutlines.com/topic/cnstumorpituicytoma.html. Accessed March 9th, 2021.
Definition / general
- Also called infundibuloma
- Rare low grade glioma of sella and suprasellar region
- May be derived from neurohypophyseal pituicytes (a specialized glial cell of the stalk and posterior lobe of the pituitary gland with supportive role for vasopressin and oxytocin producing neurons)
- Mean age 48 years, range 30 - 83 years; 6 of 9 were men
- Visual symptoms, headaches or hypopituitarism
Radiology description
- Solid, discrete, contrast enhancing masses within sella or suprasellar space
Case reports
- 66 year old man with intrasellar pituicytoma with other endocrine neoplasms (Arch Pathol Lab Med 2001;125:527)
Treatment
- Total resection
- May recur if incompletely excised
Microscopic (histologic) description
- Sheet, fascicles or storiform arrangement of plump bipolar spindle cells with abundant, slightly fibrillar eosinophilic cytoplasm without vacuoles and without granulation, mildly pleomorphic and oval nuclei with pinpoint nucleoli
- Rich capillary network with vessels often surrounded by radiating spindle cells
- No infiltration of adjacent tissue, no Rosenthal fibers, no granular bodies, no granular axonal dilations (Herring bodies, normally present in neurohypophysis), no / rare mitotic figures
Negative stains
- Synaptophysin, neurofilament, collagen type IV (not present between tumor cells)
- Usually EMA
Electron microscopy description
- Bipolar spindle cells with abundant intermediate filaments
- No meningothelial or ependymal features
Differential diagnosis
- Benign fibrous histiocytoma (S100-)
- Granular cell tumor
- Meningioma: whorls, psammoma bodies, nuclear inclusions, collagen deposition; EMA+, S100+ in fibrous variant, GFAP-; well defined desmosomes and interdigitating cell membranes
- Normal neurohypophysis: has axons, Herring bodies, perivascular anucleate zones with axonal terminations
- Pilocytic astrocytoma
- Pituitary adenoma: synaptophysin+, often chromogranin+, S100-, GFAP-
- Schwannoma: biphasic, hyalinized vessels, pericellular reticulin
Additional references
