A 10-year Survey of Parapharyngeal and Infratemporal fossa Masses in Hazrat Rasoul Hospital

Parapharyngeal and infratemporal masses are rare head and neck tumors that constitute about 0.5% of all of them. To assess the distribution of infratemporal and parapharyngeal masses, this study was carried out in ENT department of Hazrat Rasoul Hospital as a sample of Iranian population. In this retrospective study, we evaluated parapharyngeal and infratemporal tumors in Hazrat Rasoul-e-Akram Hospital in Tehran, from Jan. 1991 until Jan. 2001. The sampled population was 39 patients suffering from these masses. The mean age of the patients was 44.9 years. The most frequent complaint was asymptomatic neck mass(69.2%). The findings reported masses of these areas in descending order of frequency: salivary gland tumors(51.2%-esp. PMA: Pleomorphic Adenoma), paraganglioma (15.3%), schwanoma (7.7%), angiofobroma and lymphoma. All patients had been evaluated by imaging techniques, the most common of which was contrast-enhanced CT-scan. All patients except one case of NHL(Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma) were candidates to be operated on and with the exception of 4 cases, surgery via transcervical approach(with or without a combined approach) was done on them.