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Malignant tumors of the cuneiform sinus: causes, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment
Last reviewed: 07.07.2025
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[ Symptoms of malignant tumors of the sphenoid sinus
In the initial period, tumors develop slowly and asymptomatically (latent period) for a long period. In the advanced stage, they often simulate chronic purulent sphenoiditis.
During the period of exterritorialization, they cause severe complications: retrobulbar neuritis of the optic nerve, amaurosis, syndromes of pituitary gland damage, meningitis, thrombosis of the cavernous sinus. The appearance of these complications indicates the onset of an incurable condition, accessible only to palliative or symptomatic treatment.
At this stage, posterior rhinoscopy reveals tumor growths prolapsing through the anterior, thinnest wall of the sphenoid sinus and its natural communications with the nasopharynx. With more abundant tumor vegetations, they can penetrate the nasopharyngeal opening of the auditory tube, causing unilateral or bilateral phenomena of eustachitis and tubootitis. Tumor growth into the walls of the auditory tube is the beginning of carcinomatosis of the middle ear. Diagnosis is facilitated by X-ray of the skull in the lateral projection, in which the tumor is visualized in the area of the sphenoid sinus as a dense shadow extending beyond the bony borders of the sinus.
Diagnosis of malignant tumors of the sphenoid sinus
Malignant tumors of the sphenoid sinus should be differentiated from pituitary tumors, nasopharyngeal fibromas, and tertiary syphilis. Usually, pituitary tumor damage leads to hypothalamic-pituitary insufficiency syndrome, which manifests itself in signs of decreased production of triple pituitary hormones, including adrenocorticotropic and somatotropic, as well as many other incretions. The clinical picture of hypothalamic-pituitary insufficiency is extremely diverse - from microsymptoms caused by impaired secretion of individual hormones to pituitary cachexia, which is severe and rapid and ends in pituitary coma (adynamia, stupor, hyponatremia, hypoglycemia, convulsions, hypothermia) and, in combination with general cancer intoxication, rapidly occurring death.
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Treatment of malignant tumors of the sphenoid sinus
Treatment of malignant tumors of the sphenoid sinus is exclusively palliative and symptomatic due to late diagnosis and the impossibility of the topographic-anatomical position of the sphenoid bone.
What is the prognosis for malignant tumors of the sphenoid sinus?
Malignant tumors of the sphenoid sinus have a pessimistic prognosis.