A Case of Middle Ear Neuroendocrine Adenoma in a Patient with Hearing Loss and Facial Palsy / 대한이비인후과학회지

Middle ear adenoma is a very rare disease which is benign and originates from the middle ear mucosa. Patients of middle ear adenoma usually come to the clinic for unilateral hearing loss or tinnitus, but rarely for accompanied facial palsy. It is non-gender specific and occurs over a wide range of ages. The recurrence rate is known to be very low, but few authors argue that neuroendocrine adenoma should be considered as a low grade carcinoma due to some cases of recurrence. A 18 years-old male who had a left side facial palsy about 3 years ago but has currently improved as compared with the initial onset, visited our clinic for the left side hearing loss. Pure tone audiogram showed about 30 dB of conductive hearing loss and a pinkish polypoid mass involving the left tympanic membrane. We removed a tumor via transmastoid approach. The final diagnosis was middle ear adenoma with neuroendocrine differentiation. Neither signs of complication nor recurrence were observed after six months of the surgery.

A Case of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Presenting as Middle Ear Tumor / 대한이비인후과학회지

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) evolves most commonly from the pharyngeal recess posteromedial to the medial crura of the Eustachian tube opening in the nasopharynx. Therefore unilateral middle ear effusion with hearing loss is a common presenting symptom of NPC, and its presence in adult patients make physicians suspect NPC. Recently, we experienced a 72- year-old female patient with advanced NPC which invaded Eustachian tube and middle ear cavity. She had long standing chronic otitis media with large perforation of tympanic membrane. Because of tympanic membrane perforation, she did not have any Eustachian tube-related symptoms such as newly developing ear fullness or hearing loss and even the physician had overlooked the diagnosis of NPC. Her NPC was diagnosed at a very advanced stage after performing biopsy of middle ear tumor. This case report shows that NPC can present with very unusual findings like middle ear tumor.