[Diagnosis and treatment of carotid body tumors].

OBJECTIVE To study the diagnosis and therapy of carotid body tumors. METHOD A total of 44 patients with carotid body tumors were received and cured in people's hospital of Wuhan University from 1990 to 2010. Two of them were bilateral carotid body tumor patients. The operation were performed in all patients to remove the tumors. Among these patients, 39 of them were undertaken only tumor resecting, 6 were performed resecting of both tumors and external carotid artery and 1 were subjected to tumor resecting including internal carotid artery. RESULT None of the patients died after operation. In addition, none were detected hemiplegia except that 2 had temporary hoarseness. No recurrence were observed during a follow-up of 2-24 months. CONCLUSION The most effective way to cure carotid body tumor is surgical operation. A better result may attribute to some key factors included adequate preoperative preparation, making sure the anatomic relationship with vessels and bipolar coagulation under microscope.