International Journal of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery | April-June 2017 | Vol 3 | Issue 2 Page 423
International Journal of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery
Panbude SN et al. Int J Otorhinolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2017 Apr;3(2):423-426
http://www.ijorl.com
pISSN 2454-5929 | eISSN 2454-5937
Case Report
Cavernous hemangioma of the nasal cavity: mimicking as the
inverted papilloma
Sushil Natthuji Panbude, Amrita Harish Guha*, Abhishek Mahajan,
Nilesh Pandurang Sable, Supreeta Arya
INTRODUCTION
Haemangiomas are benign vascular tumours, which
originate in the skin, mucosa and deep structures such as
bones, muscles and glands. Exact etiopathogenesis of
haemangiomas formation is not known, although they are
divided into two types depending on the dominant vessel
size at microscopy into capillary and cavernous types.
When these neoplasms arise in the nasal cavity, they are
predominantly capillary and are found to arise from the
nasal septum and are more common in the children. On
the other hand, cavernous haemangiomas are more likely
to be found on the lateral wall of the nasal cavity and are
more commonly seen in elderly.
1
In the largest study of
nasal haemangiomas by Osborn in 1959 which reviewed
51 patients with nasal haemangiomas over an 11-year
period, only two were of the cavernous variety.
2
We have
presented a rare case cavernous haemangiomas arising
from the mucosa of the middle nasal meatus, in a 37-
year-old male mimicking as an inverted papilloma.
CASE REPORT
A 37 year old male patient presented with intermittent
swelling of the left side of face and epistaxis since 1.5
years. Anterior rhinoscopy revealed a large soft tissue
mass almost completely filling in the left nasal cavity,
with active mucoid discharge and minimal blood clots. A
contrast enhanced MR scan was done which revealed a
well-defined non bone erosive mass within and limited to
ABSTRACT
Cavernous hemangioma of the nasal cavity is extremely rare with only case reports in the literature highlighting the
imaging findings on CT and MRI. Haemangioma are benign vascular tumours, which originate in the skin, mucosa
and deep structures such as bones, muscles and glands. Exact etiopathogenesis of the haemangioma is not known,
although they are divided into two types depending on the dominant vessel size at microscopy, capillary and
cavernous. When these neoplasms arise in the nasal cavity, they are predominantly capillary and are found to arise
from the nasal septum and are more common in the children. On the other hand, Cavernous haemangiomas are more
likely to be found on the lateral wall of the nasal cavity and are more commonly seen in elderly. Also, inverted
pappiloma also more commonly arise from the lateral wall of the nasal cavity, from the middle turbinate and also has
the same demographics as the cavernous hemangioma. So, the distinction between the two should be carefully made
based on the imaging findings so as to give the appropriate treatment to the patient. We have presented a rare case
cavernous haemangioma arising from the mucosa of the middle nasal meatus, in a 37-year-old male which is
mimicking as an inverted pappiloma based on the imaging features; however on histopathology proved to be
cavernous hemangioma and also on the multimodal imaging that helps in early diagnosis and advocating appropriate
and timely treatment.
Keywords: Cavernous hemangioma, CT and MRI, Histopathology, Inverted papilloma
Department of Radiodiagnosis, Tata memorial Hospital, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Received: 24 December 2016
Accepted: 03 February 2017
*Correspondence:
Dr. Amrita Harish Guha,
E-mail: amritaguha85@gmail.com
Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under
the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/issn.2454-5929.ijohns20171204