BACKGROUND Paragangliomas are rare, vascular, and predominantly benign neoplasms of neural crest origin. They typically arise in the head and neck from the carotid body, jugulotympanic, or vagal paraganglia. Rarely, paragangliomas occur in the larynx. Only 2 cases of hypopharyngeal paraganglioma have been reported. We discuss the case of a hypopharyngeal paraganglioma and review the literature ...

BACKGROUND An evaluation of the treatment results for 104 patients with 121 paragangliomas of the temporal bone, carotid body, and/or glomus vagale who were treated with radiation therapy (RT) at the University of Florida between 1968 and 2004. METHODS Eighty-nine paragangliomas (86%) were treated with conventional megavoltage techniques, 15 (14%) patients with stereotactic fractionated radia...

Phaeochromocytomas (PHEOs) and paragangliomas (PGLs) are catecholamine-secreting tumors, that arise from chromaffin cells of the adrenal medulla and extra-adrenal sites. Extra-adrenal phaeochromocytomas are called paragangliomas (Landers et al., 2005). The Prevalence of these tumors is 1:4500 and 1:1700 and an annual incidence of 3-8 cases per 1 million per year in the general population. PHEOs...

To the Editor: We read the recent article by Eleno et al entitled ‘‘Endoglin as a marker of cervical paragangliomas.’’ The authors analyzed and compared the expression of endoglin, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), hypoxia inducible factor (HIF), and of vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM-1) in 5 surgically resected paragangliomas and in specimens of non-neoplastic lung, obtained f...

Paragangliomas are rare tumours of the autonomic nervous system and occur in sporadic and hereditary forms. They are usually benign and have a low mortality. However, they cause significant morbidity related to their mass effect. Genetic predisposition can occur within the familial tumour syndromes multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2 (MEN 2), von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) and neurofibromatosis type 1...

BACKGROUND Vagal paragangliomas (VPs) arise from paraganglia associated with the vagus nerve. Approximately 200 cases have been reported in the medical literature. Because of their rarity, most information regarding these tumors has arisen from case reports and small clinical series. OBJECTIVE To detail the clinicopathologic features of 46 patients with VP with an emphasis on the role of a mu...

AIM Paragangliomas of the spine are rare tumors. Clinical presentations and courses of spinal paragangliomas are varied, and there are no standard principles of treatment to date. The purpose of this study was to explore the diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of spinal paragangliomas. MATERIAL AND METHODS The clinical data of 7 consecutive cases, with complete medical records and follow-up re...

Paragangliomas are rare benign neoplasms arising from the neural crest-derived paraganglia of the autonomic nervous system. In the larynx three different localizations of paraganglia are known. Most laryngeal paragangliomas arise from the supraglottic paraganglia. A review of the literature shows that the treatment of choice for laryngeal paragangliomas is surgical excision. Since the implement...

BACKGROUND To determine whether MRI feature analysis can differentiate benign retroperitoneal extra-adrenal paragangliomas and schwannomas. METHODS The MRI features of 50 patients with confirmed benign retroperitoneal extra-adrenal paragangliomas and schwannomas were retrospectively reviewed by two radiologists blinded to the histopathologic diagnosis. These features were compared between two...