Retropharyngeal lipomas are rare tumours that are usually asymptomatic until they reach a large size. The definitive treatment is surgical excision. Since the tumours are typically large at the time of presentation, extensive surgery for complete clearance of the lipoma from the retropharyngeal and parapharyngeal regions is to be expected. Transoral excision is typically indicated for small ret...

The da Vinci surgical robot has been used for minimally invasive surgery of the head and neck region including resection of tumors in the nasopharynx. Access to and vision of the nasopharynx with the robot are difficult. A pure transoral approach and midline palatal split approach have been described. The disadvantage of these approaches is the limited lateral access to the parapharyngeal space...

Parapharyngeal space (PPS) tumours, most of them benign, account for some 0.5% of tumours of the head and neck. The importance of these tumours lies mainly in two aspects: on the one hand, the difficulty of early diagnosis, due to the lack of symptoms in the initial stages and, on the other, the extreme complications of performing surgery in the parapharyngeal region. This article discusses two...

A 44-years-old male presented with right infraauricular swelling. It had been four months since he was aware of the mass. He had not felt any pain or tenderness. Computed tomograpy demonstrated a homogenous, regular surfaced mass located in the prestyloid and poststyloid parapharyngeal space. Its density was concordant with lipomatous tissue, so it was considered to be an infiltrating paraphary...

BACKGROUND The metastasis of papillary thyroid carcinoma to the parapharyngeal space is rare and discussed in the English literature before. Encountering a parapharyngeal mass with cystic appearance on imaging, one should rule out thyroid malignancy as differential diagnosis. CASE PRESENTATION The case presented here is a 22-year-old woman who was referred to our clinic with complaints of pai...

Background: Mucoepidermoid carcinoma ex-pleomorphic adenoma (MECxPA) is an extremely rare salivary gland malignancy. With only nine prior reported cases, this entity represents a challenging histopathological diagnosis. Methods: We present a case of a 71-year-old male with an enlarging left neck mass over several months. CT showed both a parapharyngeal space mass and a separate level II neck ma...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The oropharyngeal airways are smaller in those who snore than in those who do not. We sought to determine which soft-tissue component surrounding the airways contributes to upper airway narrowing in those who snore. METHODS Ten control subjects and 19 snoring patients underwent CT, with 2-mm-thick axial sections obtained every 0.6 seconds during the respiration cycle at...

The parapharyngeal space is an anatomic region that may present various forms of tumoral masses, different by histology, extension and location. For ENT aeromedical examinator, deciding the most proper surgical approach in this treatment may be difficult. The authors analyze diagnostic and treatment criteria used for parapharyngeal space tumors and review the surgical techniques used. Transcerv...

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS A subtemporal preauricular approach to the infratemporal fossa and parapharyngeal space has been the traditional path to tumors of this region. The morbidity associated with this procedure has lead to the pursuit of less invasive techniques. Endoscopic access using a minimally invasive transmaxillary/transpterygoid approach potentially may obviate the drawbacks associated ...

INTRODUCTION Tumours of the parapharyngeal space are rare. Only 0.5% of head and neck tumours occur in this space. Surgical excision of parapharyngeal space lesions is challenging because of the anatomical complexity of the area. PRESENTATION OF CASE A 31-year-old male patient was referred by his general dental practitioner for removal of lower wisdom teeth due to multiple episodes of pericor...