Nasopharyngeal angiofibroma

Nasopharyngeal angiofibromas have traditionally been difficult tumors to manage. Their extreme vascularity has led to excessive bleeding during surgical removal, which often obscured the surgical field and contributed to high recurrence rates because of incomplete removal. High recurrence rates have also been due to failure to recognize the full size and extent of these tumors preoperatively by routine physical examination and X-ray techniques. A combined experience of the authors with over 45 cases from the University of Michigan and the University of California, San Francisco, is presented to review the problems in management of these tumors and to present techniques of diagnosis and management which have been used to overcome some of these problems. The most important advances in diagnosis have been the radiographic techniques of laminagraphy and carotid angiography. Previously unrecognized tumor extensions into the areas surrounding the nasopharynx have been quite clearly demonstrated by these techniques. Improved surgical treatment of these tumors by wider surgical exposure and removal, utilizing multiple approaches when necessary, and by better control of bleeding by ligation and embolization of the main arterial supply, has led to fewer recurrences.