Sufficiently low production of certain pituitary hormones can be fatal resulting in the failure of the thyroid or adrenal glands.
[citation needed] Common symptoms include nausea, vomiting, fatigue, loss of libido, amenorrhea, and dizziness.
[2] However, there have been cases of isolated attacks as a result of drug reactions (i.e., use of blocking antibody ipilimumab)[3][4] or idiopathic events that have presented symptoms which may disappear after relatively short term treatment (i.e., 1 year on corticoids or other immune suppressants).
[2] Tests for normal pituitary gland hormone production tend to be expensive and in some cases difficult to administer.
Surgery is only an option for those suffering from visual problems/ophthalmoplegia, have a mass like an effect from compression of nearby structures, or for those that require histology for diagnosis.
However, it is thought that this may be an underestimate, especially due to the recent use of immune checkpoint inhibitors for cancer treatments, which have endocrine side effects affecting the pituitary gland.
The autopsy described destruction of the pituitary and thyroid consistent with autoimmune attack and included atrophy of the adrenal glands.
[7] Nevertheless, autoimmune hypophysitis is frequently referred to as a rare disease and the most recent estimates as to its prevalence give it a value of around 5 per million.