Surgery of the carotid body tumour: a case report and review of literature

The carotid body tumour is the most common head and neck paraganglioma arising from the carotid bodies located at the bifurcation of the common carotid arteries. These are very rare tumors with an incidence of 0.012% in general population. They present as slow growing, asymptomatic neck masses of varying duration. They occur in sporadic, hereditary and hyperplastic variants. The hereditary forms tend to be bilateral, functional and carry higher risk of malignancy. The angiography is the modality of choice for diagnosis and treatment planning. The surgical resection is the mainstay of treatment which can be performed with acceptable complication rates in experienced centres. We report the case of a 37-year-old lady who presented with a slowly growing mass on the right side of the neck for which she under went surgery and histopathological examination confirmed the diagnosis of carotid body tumour.