Abstract
The case of a left carotid body tumor is herein reported. The patient was a 47-year-old woman who presented complaining of a left neck mass. Computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and angiography all demonstrated a tumor mass showing high vascularity which was located at the bifurcation of the left carotid artery. The clinical diagnosis of a left carotid body tumor was thus made. The patient showd satisfactory ballon occlusion test results without any neurological complications. Since the tumor strongly adhered to the carotid arterial wall, the tumor was resected together with the carotid artery. Although a reconstruction of the the carotid artery was not performed, no neurological complications were recognized except for partial palsy of some cranial nerves, which were injured intraoperatively. In the literature, 24 such cases of carotid body tumors, which had been operated on during the past 10 years in Japan, were also reviewed. In 8 of these cases, the tumor was resected together with the carotid artery which was not reconstructed in 4 cases. In these 4 cases, no neurological complications were recognized. It was thus concluded that the satisfactory results of a preoperative examination, including a MATAS test, thus indicated that a reconstruction of the carotid artery, which had been resected with the carotid body tumor, was therefore not necessary in this patient.
