Juvenile Nasopharyngeal Angiofibroma: Case report with review on role of imaging in diagnosis

Abstract

Juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma is a locally aggressive benign vascular neoplasm, composed of vasogenic and myofibroblastic elements, accounts for 0.05-0.5% of all the head and neck neoplasms. There are very few case reports of nasopharyngeal angiofibroma involving the oral cavity; we report a case involving both the maxilla and mandible in a 17-year-old patient who reported with a large firm swelling on right side of face with recurrent epistaxis and headache. Magnetic resonance angiography revealed a large lobulated enhancing soft tissue mass, which was hypointense on T1-weighted image and heterogeneously hyperintense on T2-weighted image causing expansion of pterygopalatine fossa and sphenopalatine foramen with extension into the sphenoid sinus, ethmoid air cells, right nasal cavity, right infratemporal fossa and right maxillary sinus with remodeling of right zygomatic arch and part of body and ramus of mandible. It was supplied by the right external carotid artery. Patient was referred to the department of neurosurgery for further management. The diagnosis at an early stage is important because it is associated with high risk of morbidity, but advances in imaging, and surgical methods of treatment have changed the sites associated with high risk of morbidity.

Keywords

• Angiography
• computed tomography
• juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma
• magnetic resonance imaging