Abstract
Juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma is a relatively rare, benign and highly vascular tumor that almost exclusively affects adolescent males. We report a 17-year-old male who complained of right nasal obstruction and recurrent epistaxis of the right nostril. A rhinoscopic examination revealed a large mass filling the right choanal cavity.
A three dimensional CT scan revealed that the tumor filling the nasopharyngeal cavity extended into the sphenopalatine fossa and that it partially invaded the sphenoid sinus. Visual inspection and radiologic imaging suggested that the tumor was an angiofibroma. Preoperative embolization with gelfoam and coils was perfomed using the Seldinger technique one day prior to the surgery.
Complete removal of the tumor was accomplished with a blood loss of only 400ml. This unusually small amount of blood loss during the surgery confirmed the effectiveness of the preoperative embolization.
