Ganglioneuroblastoma is composed of both ganglion and neuroblast cells and is a subset of neuroblastoma, which is one of the most popular malignant tumors of children. This type of tumor typically originates from the abdomen and rarely from the neck. We report a case of cervical ganglioneuroblastoma in this article.
A 9 year-old girl was presented as having an elastic hard tumor in the left side of her neck. The tumor located behind the bifurcation of the common carotid artery and no blood flow was detected by either ultrasonic study or magnetic resonance imaging. We performed extirpation of the tumor as a neurinoma, and carried out an additional neck dissection after the tumor was diagnosed as a ganglioneuroblastoma by pathologic study of a frozen section of the tumor. Its origin was thought to be the cervical sympathetic trunk.
Complete surgical resection is sufficient treatment for cervical ganglioneuroblastoma in children because it can be detected earlier than abdominal tumors and because radiation therapy and chemotherapy have serious side effects on children.
