Evaluation of the pituitary gland in idiopathic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism.
OBJECTIVE
Evaluation of the pituitary gland has been carried out in idiopathic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (IHH) to test the potential of MR imaging in differentiating IHH patients from normals.


METHODS
Thirty-seven patients (aged 18-30 years), and 20 volunteers (aged 20-30 years) were studied by T1-weighted MR imaging. Length (LA and LP), height (H), width (W), area (AA and AP), and volume (V1A, V1B V2A, V2P) of the pituitary gland were determined. (Subscripts P and A refer to measurements made with and without the posterior lobe, respectively.) V1 and V2 were estimated using two different methods.


RESULTS
In the control group, LB W and V2A exhibited significant differences between female and male volunteers. While W was the only parameter that did not show significant difference between normals and patients (in both men and women), all other parameters except LB H and AP showed statistically significant differences between normals and IHH patients in both males and females. While LP was significantly different between normals and patients (men), H and AP were significantly different between normals and patients only in the female group.


CONCLUSIONS
Correlation analysis between various parameters has shown that LA can be used for evaluating the pituitary in both the male and female IHH patients.
Jayasundar
R
R
Department of NMR, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
Ammini
A C
AC
Gupta
R
R
Raghunathan
P
P
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001284:Atrophy; D005260:Female; D006065:Gonadotropins, Pituitary / Q000172:deficiency*; D006801:Humans; D007006:Hypogonadism / Q000175:diagnosis*; D007018:Hypopituitarism / Q000175:diagnosis*; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; D008297:Male; D009929:Organ Size; D010902:Pituitary Gland / Q000473:pathology*; D012016:Reference Values; D012737:Sex Factors