Zhiyue J. Wang1,2, Dah-Jyuu Wang3,
Jonathan M. Chia4, Qing Yuan1, Michael C. Morriss1,2,
Nancy K. Rollins1,2
1University of Texas
Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States; 2Children's
Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States; 3Children's Hospital of
Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, United States; 4Philips
Healthcare, Cleveland, OH, United States
The pituitary gland, or hypophysis, is the master gland of the endocrine system. Although many software tools are available for brain volumetric analysis, most are for white and gray matter segmentation, and not applicable for pituitary volumetry. An automatic approach is non-trivial due to various neighboring regions. The anterior pituitary has interfaces with the posterior pituitary, CSF and the air space of the sphenoid sinus that each require different threshold values. Measurement of the anterior and posterior pituitary volumes by manual tracing on MR images can be time consuming and has poor reproducibility. We have developed a semi-automated approach that combines manual tracing and threshold settings based on histograms that simultaneously measures the anterior and posterior pituitary volumes.