Typical carcinoid tumor arising in the nose and paranasal sinuses--case report

Carcinoid tumors arise from neuroendocrine cells, many of which are present in the digestive tract and lungs. There have been few reports of carcinoid tumors occurring in the nose and paranasal sinus area, and they are very rare. We encountered a patient with a carcinoid tumor that arose in the nose and paranasal sinuses, and we report the case with a review of the literature. The patient was a 75-year-old woman who began to experience right-sided nasal obstruction, and when her nose began to bleed on the right-side she was examined in our department. A tumor lesion that easily bled and had filled the right nasal cavity was observed. CT revealed a mass lesion with a marked contrast enhancement in the right nasal cavity, ethmoid sinus, and sphenoid sinus, and MRI showed numerous flow voids in the interior that seemed to be tumor blood vessels. The tumor was excised through a lateral rhinotomy. The histopathological diagnosis was a carcinoid tumor. Tumor recurrence was subsequently detected in the vicinity of the opening of the sphenoid sinus, and because the tumor was tending to grow larger, the tumor was resected. The patient has been followed up in the outpatient clinic, recurrence-free.