Surgical experience with nasopharyngeal angiofibroma

Recent reports have suggested that radiotherapy may be preferable to other forms of treatment of juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma. There are, however, potentially serious short- and long-term complications associated with the use of radiotherapy in the head and neck. For the past three years, ten consecutive patients with juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma have been treated at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation with an approach that permits accurate removal with minimal complications. With this method of treatment, intraoperative blood loss, the necessity for blood transfusion, and length of hospital stay have been greatly decreased. There have been no substantive complications and no recurrences to date. If further experience with this approach to management in a larger series of patients has the same results, it would seem that radiotherapy should be relegated to a secondary position in the treatment of juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma, except for cases wherein intracranial extension would prevent total excision.