Pituitary Cancer Staging

The stage of cancer tells how much and how far the disease has spread. This information can help guide doctors and patients in making treatment decisions. In pituitary cancer, there is no standard system of staging because pituitary tumors are almost always non-cancerous. Cancer of the pituitary gland is too rare for a staging system to be developed. To decide treatment for pituitary tumors, the doctor will look at whether the tumor is a microadenoma or a macroadenoma, whether it is functional or not, and what hormones it releases.