Tonsillar swelling:  always a simple diagnosis?

Alicandri-Ciufelli, Matteo; Molteni, Gabriele; Villari, Domenico; Mattioli, Francesco; Presutti, Livio

doi:10.5694/j.1326-5377.2009.tb02502.x

ARTICLE
AUTHORS
REFERENCES

Topics

A 45-year-old man presented with marked, progressive bulging of the right tonsil (Figure, A) and slight swelling of the right submandibular region. Gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging of the head and neck showed a large (5 × 4 × 3 cm) neoplasm, occupying the right parapharyngeal space, extending from the deep parotid lobe to the ipsilateral tonsillar region (Figure, B). The neoplasm was removed via an incision in the neck and identified, by histological examination, as a pleomorphic adenoma.

In many cases, the first clinical sign of a deep-lobe parotid neoplasm is enlargement of the tonsillar region. Other differential diagnoses of tonsillar swelling include peritonsillar abscess, tonsillar neoplasm and internal carotid aneurysm.

View this article on Wiley Online Library

Matteo Alicandri-Ciufelli¹
Gabriele Molteni²
Domenico Villari³
Francesco Mattioli⁴
Livio Presutti⁵

Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Policlinico di Modena, Modena, Italy.

Correspondence: gabriele.molteni@yahoo.it

Online responses are no longer available. Please refer to our instructions for authors page for more information.

Tonsillar swelling: always a simple diagnosis?

Topics

Author

Comment

Do you have any competing interests to declare? *