Suprasellar Mass in Adults: Differential Diagnosis #13

Today's Daily Diff is suprasellar masses in adults. The phrase SATCHMOE can be used to recall the diagnoses in this differential. Apparently, 'Satchmo' (without the 'e') was a nickname for jazz great Louis Armstrong. Some purists would omit the 'e' from the mnemonic, especially as eosinophilic granuloma is a form of Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis, which is already covered by the letter 'h'.

	Disease	Notes
S	Suprasellar adenoma	aka pituitary adenoma; enhances on MR
A	Aneurysm
T	Teratoma / Seminoma
C	Craniopharyngioma	Arise from Rathke's cleft; papillary form, age 40s; typically calcified and cystic
H	Histiocytosis / Hypothalamic glioma
M	Meningioma / Metastases	Most common pituitary mets: breast, lung
O	Optic glioma
E	Eosinophilic granuloma / Epidermoid

MR characteristics as well as age can be used to narrow the differential, but those features are beyond the scope of this post... which is a fancy way of saying I am too lazy to look all them up right now, but hopefully will update this at a later time. Or just check out the references below.

Pituitary macroadenoma
Source: Radiopaedia

References:

• Metastases to the pituitary
• SATCHMOE Mnemonic
• Pituitary Masses | Radiopaedia