Abstract In approximately 30% of patients with Cushing disease, pituitary magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) does not reliably identify a corticotroph adenoma. Importantly, surgical remission rates are 2.5 fold higher for microadenomas that are radiologically visible on preoperative imaging when compared with “MRI-negative” cases. We describe a 42-year-old woman with Cushing disease, in whom MRI findings at presentation were equivocal with no clear adenoma visualized. She was initially treated with metyrapone, which resulted in partial biochemical control of hypercortisolism. After switching to osilodrostat, there was a marked improvement in her symptoms and rapid normalization of cortisol levels. Following 3 months of eucortisolemia, 11Cmethionine positron emission tomography (MET-PET) coregistered with volumetric MRI (MET-PET/MRCR) localized the site of the corticotroph tumor and the patient underwent successful transsphenoidal resection. She remains in full clinical and biochemical remission at 2 years postsurgery. This case suggests that a period of eucortisolemia induced by osilodrostat may facilitate localization of corticotroph microadenomas using functional (PET) imaging.
Htut et al. (2025) studied this question.