| Summary: | Cushing's disease is caused by excessive secretion of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) by hormone-secreting pituitary adenomas, the first-choice treatment for which is surgical resection of the pituitary adenoma. Medication therapy is the second-line treatment, and a necessary treatment for some patients with unsatisfactory surgical results or failing to use the surgery. With recent developments in pathogenesis studies of Cushing's disease, medications specifically targeting hormone-secreting pituitary adenomas have proven to be effective in controlling the tumor growth, and suppressing the tumor's secretion of ACTH, which may be a theoretical and practical basis for medical treatment of Cushing's disease. In this review, we discussed pituitary-directed medical therapies for Cushing's disease and their mechanisms of actions, aiming to increase medical workers' understanding of this disease, and to offer theoretical evidence for the development of appropriate treatment strategies.
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