Pituitary gland articles from across Nature Portfolio

This article is the second part of the first-ever comprehensive, two-part, consensus guideline to cover the care of children and young people under 19 years of age with pituitary adenoma. Part 2 details 57 recommendations for CYP with prolactinomas, Cushing disease, growth hormone excess, clinically non-functioning adenomas and TSHomas.

This Review discusses notable discoveries in pituitary stem cell function and highlights important areas for current and future research, including the use of pituitary organoids for the advancement of pituitary stem cell biology and pituitary organogenesis as well as potential therapeutic approaches.

Gonadotropes in the pituitary secrete follicle-stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone to control gonadal function and fertility, but whether they exert actions on extra-gonadal organs is not fully understood. Here the authors report that gonadotropes regulate liver steatosis independent of the ovaries in mice.

A new study convincingly demonstrates a deficiency of pituitary oxytocin secretion in patients with vasopressin deficiency. Neuropsychological evaluations of these patients indicate increased anxiety and reduced prosocial behaviours, thereby characterizing the phenotype of the first documented disorder of oxytocin deficiency in humans.

Stem cells in the pituitary master gland remain mystifying; moreover, they have hardly been explored in humans. A new study applied transcriptome and chromatin accessibility profiling at single-cell resolution to human postmortem pituitary glands from individuals of different ages, thereby providing insights into the heterogeneity and regulatory mechanisms of the projected human pituitary stem cell population.

The first large-scale, multicentric analysis of long-term results with Gamma Knife (Elekta) radiosurgery in the therapeutically challenging area of Cushing disease shows that, in selected patients, this radiation technique enables hormonal control to be achieved in most patients with relatively few adverse effects but with a significant risk of disease recurrence.