Cushing's Disease and Basophilic Microadenomas

Harvey Cushing suspected that the clinical syndrome that now bears his name was caused by a secretory pituitary tumor. In 1935, when one of his patients with evidence of the disease died, Cushing was able to persuade the family to exhume the body for autopsy — remarkable evidence of the esteem in which Cushing was held by the patient's family. A circumscribed pituitary adenoma was detected. This case, together with others observed elsewhere, led Cushing to propose that the disease was the result of secretion by pituitary basophilic adenomas. The etiologic role of pituitary adenomas was soon questioned because in . . .