Surgical management of primary parapharyngeal space tumors in 103 patients at a single institution

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate clinical features, diagnosis, surgical management, and treatment of parapharyngeal space tumors in a single-center setting due to limited knowledge of diagnosis and treatment of parapharyngeal space.

Methods: Clinical records of 103 patients were included for the analysis of such clinical characteristics.

Results: A total of 29 different types of tumors were diagnosed after operation: 20 benign and 9 malignant. With a follow-up of 31–84 months for 90 benign cases, 84 cases had no recurrence and 6 cases were lost to follow-up. In contrast, with an 8- to 51-month follow-up for 13 malignant cases, 11 patients died and 2 were lost to follow-up. Furthermore, for postoperative complications, 3 cases had Horner syndrome, 2 had hoarseness, 2 had facial nerve dysfunction, and each for other types.

Conclusions: Surgery remains the first choice for the treatment of parapharyngeal space tumors, with the transcervical approach used for most tumors. Moreover, CT or MRI may assist in making decisions about operation schemes.

Chinese abstract

目的：由于对咽旁间隙肿瘤的诊断和治疗知识有限, 我们评估了在单中心条件下咽旁间隙肿瘤的临床特征、诊断、手术处理和治疗, 。

方法：对103例患者的临床资料进行临床特征分析。

结果：手术后共诊断了29种不同类型的肿瘤：20例良性和9例恶性。对90例良性病例随访31〜84个月, 84例无复发, 6例失访。相比之下, 对13例恶性病例随访8〜51个月, 11例死亡, 2例失访。此外, 至于术后并发症, 霍纳综合征3例, 声音沙哑2例, 面神经功能障碍2例, 其它类型各一例。

结论：手术仍然是治疗咽旁间隙肿瘤的首选方法, 大多数肿瘤采用颈部手术。此外, CT或MRI可能有助于作出关于手术方案的决定。

Keywords:

• Parapharyngeal space tumors
• head and neck neoplasms
• diagnostic imaging
• surgical treatment

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no competing financial interests or conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participates were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. For this type of study, formal consent is not required.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Taishan Scholars Program (No. tshw20130950), Shandong Province; the Department of Science and Technology of Shandong Province (No. ZR2013HM107, ZR2014HM005, 2015GSF118014, and 2015GSF118030); Science Foundation of Qilu Hospital of Shandong University; and the Fundamental Research Funds of Shandong University (No. 2014QLKY05).