Paraganglioma of the tympanic membrane

Von Haller, in 1743, first described the carotid body and was so impressed with the richness of its innervation that he called it 'ganglion minutum', thinking it to be a sympathetic ganglion. Valentine, in 1840, saw a peculiar structure in the tympanic canaliculus in which a nerve cell was present and called it 'gangliolum tympanicum'. Almost 100 years later, in 1941, Stacey Guild reported the presence of some structures near the wall of the jugular bulb and described them as 'glomus jugulare'. Following this report, Rosenwaser (1945) and Otani were able to make a correct classification of these tumours in the middle ear. There have been innumerable reports of them and various authors have called them by various names. We report here a case of paraganglioma which was localized entirely to the tympanic membrane without involving any other part of the middle-ear cleft.