Ameer's Story: Pituitary Tumor

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Ameer’s friends noticed the weight loss, and they kept asking him about it. Was he OK? Ameer wasn’t concerned at first. Then he began to notice that he couldn’t see people approaching him from the side. His peripheral vision was deteriorating. The third symptom landed him in the hospital. After getting up unusually late one morning and putting his shirt on backwards, he suffered a seizure. “Something was clearly wrong, and I knew I had to sit down,” Ameer recalls.

Ameer lost consciousness, and he was taken to University Hospital, where he underwent an MRI, which revealed a tumor the size of a walnut on his pituitary gland. Fortunately, Ameer’s tumor was benign and highly treatable. John M. Tew, M.D. (above left, with Ameer), a Mayfield Clinic neurosurgeon and Clinical Director of the UC Neuroscience Institute, prescribed medication and told Ameer he needed to regain his strength and some of the lost weight before surgery could be performed.

About a month later, Dr. Tew and his team successfully removed the tumor, approaching it through Ameer’s nose in a delicate, minimally invasive procedure called endoscopic transsphenoidal surgery. “They cut two holes in my nostrils,” Ameer says. “They took fat from my stomach and filled the void where the tumor had been. My only scar is on my stomach.”

Dr. Tew performed the transsphenoidal surgery in collaboration with Lee Zimmer, M.D., Ph.D., an otolaryngologist (ear, nose, and throat surgeon) with the Brain Tumor Center at the UC Neuroscience Institute and an expert in endoscopic sinus surgery.

During the procedure, the surgical team inserted an endoscope, an instrument with a tiny camera and light, through one of Ameer’s nostrils. They then made a tiny opening in the nasal septum and sphenoid sinus to gain access to the sella, an area where the pituitary gland – and Ameer’s tumor -- resided. The surgeons then passed narrow instruments, called curettes, through the other nostril to remove the tumor in pieces. They cored out the inside of the tumor, allowing the margins to fall inward, and then removed the remaining tumor, piece by piece.

They checked their work – had all of the tumor been removed? – by inspecting the tumor cavity with the endoscope’s tiny camera and light. The final steps were to fill the cavity with a small portion of fat from Ameer’s abdomen, to place a sliver of cartilage over the incision in the sella, and to cover the area with a special glue.

Ameer, a retired electrician, is seeing well, eating well, working out regularly, and thankful for the excellent care he received.

Interview with Ameer