Abstract

Background: Nasopharyngeal notochordoma is a rare congenital low-grade malignant tumor which is very rarely seen in clinical practice. We describe a case of nasopharyngeal notochondroma, the patient admitted in our department for surgery for fifth time.

Case report: The patient complained of left sided nasal obstruction, snoring, with left fronto-temporal headache and progressive decline of vision especially of left eye for 2 months. She had been performed surgery for the removal of nasopharyngeal notochodroma for four times. Every time she was performed surgery postoperative imaging examination showed no any residual tumor mass. But unfortunately there was always recurrence of mass. This time (fifth time) the patient was admitted for surgery, latter after the CT scan and MRI examination, showed bone destruction so patient denied for surgical treatment.

Conclusion: In this study we describe the clinical features, diagnostic evidence, treatment and discuss the possible reason of recurrence. Nasopharyngeal notochondroma is impossible to remove completely by surgery so other radiotherapy will help to increase prognosis and survival rate. As clinical feature of nasopharyngeal notochondroma is quite similar to nasopharyngeal carcinoma so it should not be confused in diagnosis and treatment.

Keywords: Notochondroma, Congenital, Malignant tumor, Recurrence