All issues > Volume 22(2); 1979

Original Article

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1979;22(2):81-93. Published online February 15, 1979.

Standards for the Area and Volume of the Sella Turcica in Korean Children.

Dong Hwan Lee

¹Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Seoul National University.

Abstract

The sella turcica is often the key to intracranial diseases and some endocrine disorders. It is significanly enlarged in hypothyroidism, pituitary tumors, some types of increased intracranial pressure and decreased in size in hypopituitarism. Estimation of the sellar size by naked eye is not scientific and moreover very difficult, especially in the borderline sella, an everyday problem of radiologist and pediatrician. It would be very convenient in evaluating the size of the sellar turcica if there are reliable standards. However normal values of the sella turcica for children have not been published in Korea yet. Means+/-2 S.D. of the area and volume of the sella turcica were obtained from skull films taken antero-posterior and lateral projections with focus-film distance of 36 inches in 517 Korean children(Boys, 293; Girls, 224). The area was calculated using the formula : A=LxD, and the volume was studied using the formula : V=1/2 (LxDxW) where A is area ; V, volume ; L, length ; D, depth and W, width of the sella turcica (Fig. 1,2,3). The results obtained are presented in Tables 2~5 and Figures 4~7. By the data, sella turcica area above 70mm2 in infants (0~1 year of age), 90mm2 in preschool children(2~5 years of age), 100mm2 in schoolchildren (6~11 years of age) and 140mm2 in adolescents(12~14 years of age) and/or sellar turcica volume above 450mm2 in infants, 600mm2 in preschool children, 700mm2 in school children and 1,000mm2 in adolescents can be regarded abnormally large sella whereas sella turcica area below 10mm2 in infants, 30mm2 in preschool children, 40mm2 in school children and 50mm2 in adolescents and/or sella turcica volume below 60mm2 in infants, 150mm2 in preschool children, 300mm2 in schoolchildren and 450mm2 in adolescents can be said abnormally small sella. Separate plottings of the volume of the sella turcica for boys and girls show a rapid increase in size during the first two years of life, gradual deceleration in growth rate thereafter and pre-pubertal acceleration of growth in girls by 12 years of age and in boys by 14 years of age. The sella turcica of boys tends to be larger than that of girls from the infancy to 10 years and girls tend to be larger than that of boys between the ages of 11 and 14 years because of the earlier pre-adolescent growth acceleration in girls compared with boys(Fig. 8). An application of these normal values for the sella turcica should help the pediatrician, radiologist, neurologist and neurosurgeon in judging the size of the sellar turcica for children.

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