2003 Volume 13 Issue 3 Pages 153-158
Angioma of the head and neck region accounts for about 40% of all cases of angioma and is encountered frequently. We recently encountered a case of cavernous angioma of the parathyroid gland, presenting with very rare angioma of the deep neck region. This paper describes this case. The patient was an 89-year-old woman. She consulted our department because of purpura appearing on the anterior neck to the chest. Neck ultrasonography revealed a tumor, accompanied by pulse waves, in the area posterior to the left lobe of the thyroid gland, suggesting angioma. We considered this angioma to have arisen from collapse of the blood vessels entering the thyroid gland. The angioma was resected together with the left lobe of the thyroid gland after a collar incision, using an operative procedure resembling that for thyroid surgery. The resected tissue was pathologically rated as cavernous angioma of parathyroid gland. Several days after surgery, purpura and congestive swelling of the left vocal cord subsided, allowing the patient to be discharged from the hospital 9 days after surgery. To date, the patient has been following an uneventful course.
