Sphenoid Brown Tumor Associated with a Parathyroid Carcinoma

Abstract

Brown tumors are osteolytic bone lesions that occur as a result of persistent hyperparathyroidism. They usually appear late in the natural history of the disease and are currently very rare due to an earlier diagnosis of primary hyperparathyroidism. We present the case of a 53-year-old female with a 2-month history of bitemporal hemianopsia and diplopia. A computed tomography showed an osteolytic bone lesion that involved the sphenoid corpus and clivus. A biopsy was made and the histopathology result was consistent with a brown tumor. The aforementioned location is very infrequent to such tumors, and therefore represented a diagnostic challenge. However, in this case, its association to primary hyperparathyroidism was the clue for the diagnosis. The association of a brown tumor secondary to a parathyroid carcinoma has been seldom reported. This case represents, to our knowledge, one of the few brown tumors described in such location and the first secondary to a parathyroid carcinoma.

Hypopituitarism due to a Large Osteoclastoma Arising from the Sphenoid Bone Invading the Pituitary Fossa in a Patient with Parathyroid Carcinoma

“…They can be found in any bone sites of the skeleton, being most commonly found in ribs, clavicles, spine, skull, and hip long bones [ 9 , 11 , 12 ]. However, atypical locations such as the sellar and parasellar region and sphenoid bone have been reported previously in one case [ 13 ], but without pituitary involvement. This is another aspect that makes the present case unusual, since, to the best of our knowledge, there has been no previous report of hypopituitarism due to invasion of the adenohypophysis by an osteoclastoma.…”