Haemangioma of the maxilla

Haemangioma involving the paranasal air sinuses is rare. It presents with severe epistaxis or bleeding due to dental extraction and may mimic malignancy. A case of haemangioma of the maxilla is presented and the diagnostic and operative difficulties together with a review of literature are discussed. Bucy and Capp (1930) described primary haemangioma of bone with special reference to X-ray diagnosis. Wyke (1949) was of the opinion that haemangiomas accounted for only 10 per cent of primary benign neoplasms of skull bones. Batsakis (1979) commented that haemangioma of bone accounted for seven per cent of all osseous neoplasms and that from a review of literature he had found no more than 40 such cases. Dahlin (1967) in a review of 3,947 cases of bone tumours, found 47 cases of osseous haemangioma out of which only three involved the upper jaw. Smith (1959) reported that only 10 cases of haemangioma of the maxilla had been published by 1959 and further isolated cases have been described by Sawhney et al. (1973), Pandhi et al. (1977) and Ahad and Chisti (1977).