[Primary Ewing's sarcoma of the temporal bone: a rare case]

SummaryEwing's sarcoma is a malignant, round cell tumor arising from the bones and primarily affecting children and adolescent. Involvement of the skull bones is rarely reported, constituting 1%-6% of the total Ewing's sarcoma cases. We describe a 33 years old male patient having Ewing sarcoma of the mastoid and petrous parts of temporal bone, whose clinical presentation mimicked mastoiditis with facial nerve palsy. We discuss the clinical and therapeutic course of an extensive primary Ewing sarcoma of the temporal bone and review this entity's literature in detail. The etiopathology of an acute peripheral facial palsy is often hard to identify. If the facial weakness starts together with symptoms suggesting an inflammatory process, the differential diagnosis may be focused first on diseases like herpes zoster oticus and a severe course of acute purulent otitis media. As an uncommon tumor of the temporal bone, physicians should consider Ewing's sarcoma in the differential diagnosis of children and adolescents who present with facial nerve paralysis. And in the case of ambiguous clinical findings, a surgical exposure of the middle ear is recommended.