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Advances in the application of diffusion-weighted imaging in the diagnosis and treatment of pituitary neuroendocrine tumors
JIANG Wan  YU Ying  WANG Minyang  LU Tingting  CUI Guangbin 

Cite this article as: JIANG W, YU Y, WANG M Y, et al. Advances in the application of diffusion-weighted imaging in the diagnosis and treatment of pituitary neuroendocrine tumors[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2026, 17(4): 149-154. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2026.04.021.


[Abstract] Pituitary neuroendocrine tumor (PitNET) is a common benign tumor of the central nervous system. Functional PitNET can cause disorders related to hormonal secretion, while non-functional PitNET is prone to compressing surrounding vital tissues. Invasive subtypes may further increase treatment difficulty and recurrence risk. Therefore, accurate preoperative diagnosis, subtype differentiation, invasiveness assessment, and prognosis prediction are crucial for optimizing treatment plans and improving patient outcomes. As a functional magnetic resonance imaging technique, diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) can simultaneously provide anatomical and microstructural information of tumors. The continuous innovation of DWI-derived techniques has expanded its clinical applications in the diagnosis and treatment of PitNET. However, existing related studies have numerous limitations and lack systematic collation and summary. This article systematically review the research progress of DWI and its derived technologies in preoperative differential diagnosis, subtype prediction,evaluation of tumor stiffness, invasiveness determination, and prognosis evaluation of PitNET, thoroughly analyze the limitations of current studies in sample design, technical standards, analytical methods, and clinical translation, and point out future research directions in combination with the development trends of imaging. The purpose of this article is to sort out the application status and shortcomings of DWI technology in the field of PitNET, provide references for the standardized clinical application of this technology, and offer ideas for subsequent related research, to promote precise diagnosis and treatment of PitNET.
[Keywords] pituitary neuroendocrine tumor；magnetic resonance imaging；diffusion-weighted imaging；multi-modal magnetic resonance imaging；preoperative evaluation；invasiveness prediction；prognosis

JIANG Wan1, 2   YU Ying2   WANG Minyang2   LU Tingting2   CUI Guangbin2*  

1 School of Medicine,Yanan University, Yanan 716000, China

2 Department of Radiology, Tangdu Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an 710000, China

Corresponding author: CUI G B, E-mail: cgbtd@126.com

Conflicts of interest   None.

Received  2025-05-26
Accepted  2026-03-18
DOI: 10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2026.04.021
Cite this article as: JIANG W, YU Y, WANG M Y, et al. Advances in the application of diffusion-weighted imaging in the diagnosis and treatment of pituitary neuroendocrine tumors[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2026, 17(4): 149-154. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2026.04.021.

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