Is gigantism a normal consequence of pituitary gland tumors?
I don’t know her story at all, but it certainly sounds to me like she was an acromegalic giant. That’s the only way it happens–if they had a pituitary tumor. The tumor is making excess growth hormone–it’s a growth hormone-secreting adenoma that developed prior to her bone growth stopping, when she was still growing. If someone has excess growth hormone, they become excessively tall and become an acromegalic giant. How common are these pituitary tumors? About one in 20 people will have an abnormality in their pituitary gland…. And based on some recent demographic studies, about one in 1,000 people probably have a symptomatic pituitary adenoma [the tumor Allen had]. So, a subset of those–maybe 10 percent would have acromegaly, but it’s hard to know. According to the AP story on her death, Allen said she had her growth surgically stopped in her early 20s. How would doctors do that? She probably had the tumor removed. The standard treatment for someone who has a pituitary tumor is to re
