If a pituitary tumor has resulted in decreased hormone production, or if removal of a pituitary tumor has lowered hormone production, you may need to take replacement hormones to maintain normal hormone levels.

CNN: Pituitary tumors

Sheller explains that Risperdal stimulated the production of prolacting, which is a hormone released by the pituitary gland that stimulates breast development.

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"When you irradiate a young child's brain, say less than 5 years old, you hit the pituitary gland, which controls growth hormone production, " he said.

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The hormone was prepared from human pituitary glands recovered from cadavers, and the absence of rigorous collection guidelines and purification procedures permitted contamination of the formulated drug with the agent that causes Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, the human equivalent of "mad-cow disease, " or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

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Consider, for example, the decades of production of a human growth hormone for below-average-height children by the National Pituitary Agency.

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Two types of drugs are available for these types of pituitary tumors and are especially useful if surgery has been unsuccessful in normalizing growth hormone production.

CNN: Pituitary tumors