The pituitary Pathology Unit has been recognized as a Center, State-level Reference Unit (CSUR) for the diagnosis and treatment of pituitary diseases since 2020. This recognition implies the following characteristics:
• Provide coverage throughout the national territory and to serve all patients on an equal footing regardless of their place of residence.
• Provide multidisciplinary team care: Health care, diagnostic confirmation support, defining therapeutic and follow-up strategies, and acting as a consultant for the clinical units that usually serve these patients.
• Ensure continuity in care between stages of patient life (child-adult) and between care levels.
• Evaluate the results.
• Train other professionals.
In addition, our center obtained European accreditation as a European reference center, and has been part of the EndoERN (European Reference Network on rare endocrine conditions) since 2021. The objective of this organization is to address complex and/or rare medical conditions that require highly specialized treatment and a concentration of knowledge and resources; minimizing the differences in care between the different geographic regions, enhancing the epidemiological research and monitoring of these pathologies and identifying unmet needs to improve the treatment and diagnosis of rare endocrine diseases, such as pituitary diseases and hypothalamic region.
The pituitary Pathology Unit is currently co-directed by Dr. Anna Aulinas and Dr. Fernando Muñoz.
Dr. Anna Aulinas is an expert endocrinologist in pituitary pathology and she trained under Prof. Susan Webb, an internationally recognized expert in this pathology and in the Massachusetts General Hospital Neuroendocrinology Unit (Harvard Medical School, Boston), the leading international center in hypophysiological pathology.
PhD. Fernando Muñoz is a neurosurgeon specialized in the base of the skull and the pituitary, Director of the Neurosurgery Service, trained at the Hospital de Sant Pau itself and performed training stays at centers specializing in surgery of the pituitary and the skull base such as Stanford and Miami.
Functional Unit Team:
Our team includes experts from the Hospital de Sant Pau from a variety of disciplines: Neurosurgery, Endocrinology, Otolaryngology, Ophthalmology, Oncology, Anesthesiology, Neuroradiology, Clinical Biochemistry/hormones, Genetics, Gynecology and Reproductive Andrology, radiation therapy and the clinical case manager figure.
We offer comprehensive, multidisciplinary and optimized care for the evaluation and treatment of hypothalamus and pituitary lesions and other neuroendocrine disorders such as include, acromegaly, prolactinomas, Cushing syndrome, nonfunctioning pituitary tumors, craneofaringiomas, other lesions of the hypofisaria and hypothalamic region and hypopythuitarism or acquired and unacquired cause (congenital) hormonal deficits of the pituitary.
Our entire team is committed to providing our patients with accurate diagnosis and treatment, safe, effective and accurate surgery, through a multidisciplinary approach to achieving the best results, aspiring to offer the best experience for patients with these pathologies, with the ultimate goal of improving their quality of life.
Multidisciplinary sessions and committees
We regularly organize joint multidisciplinary sessions and committees where the most complex cases are discussed to make consensual decisions, always thinking about the best option for the patient. Treatments include observation, medication therapies, radiation, and surgery. We create personalized comprehensive treatment plans for each patient, considering age, health status, and other factors.
Research and training
In addition, the hypothalamus-pituitary Pathology Unit leads several research studies in the field of hypothalamus-pituitary pathology, following competitive research scholarships. Ambitious projects are being carried out to better understand the epidemiology of the pituitary pathologies (we are the coordinators and IPs of a multicenter study of 16 hospitals in Catalonia), studies aimed at improving chronic comorbidities and complications after having had a hypophysiological pathology or hypopythuitarism and studies to understand the pathophysiology of neurohormone oxytocin in these patients. It collaborates on research projects with national centers (Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol, identification of molecular and genetic markers for the development of pituitary tumors) and international reference in pituitary pathology (Massachusetts General Hospital, Universitario de Basel) and is the coordinating center of the ERCUSYN registry (The largest European registry of patients with Cushing syndrome). We also participate in clinical trials for the investigation of new drugs for patients with pituitary pathology (growth hormone deficit, acromegaly and Cushing syndrome).
We receive doctors on rotation (medical students, training specialists) nationals and international to train in pituitary pathology.
