Inferior Petrosal Venous Sinus Sampling in Lateralization of ACTH-Secreting Pituitary Microadenomas

To the Editor: In their article in the January 10th issue of the Journal , Oldfield et al. 1 proposed that simultaneous bilateral sampling of blood from the inferior petrosal venous sinus provides a means of localizing an ACTH-secreting microadenoma to one side of the pituitary gland. They state that "Unfortunately, radiographic studies only occasionally reveal the site of a microadenoma." Of the 12 patients with confirmed pituitary-dependent hypercortisolism, only 3 (1 with a macroadenoma and 2 with microadenomas) had abnormalities on skull x-ray films, CT scans, or both. In the discussion the authors refer to an article by Turski et . . . No extract is available for articles shorter than 400 words.