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Malignant tumors of the sphenoid sinus: causes, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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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, often simulate chronic purulent sphenoiditis.
In the period of extraterritis are the cause of severe complications: retrobulbar neuritis of the optic nerve, amaurosis, pituitary lesions syndrome, meningitis, thrombosis of the cavernous sinus. The appearance of these complications indicates the onset of an incurable condition, available only to palliative or symptomatic treatment.
At this stage, in the posterior rhinoscopy, tumor growths that prolapse through the anterior, thinnest wall of the sphenoid sinus and its natural posts with the nasopharynx are determined. With more abundant tumor vegetation, they can penetrate into the nasopharyngeal opening of the auditory tube, causing unilateral or bilateral phenomena of eustachyte and tubotitis. Germination of the tumor in the walls of the auditory tube is the beginning of middle ear carcinomatosis. Diagnosis is facilitated by the radiography of the skull in the lateral projection, in which the tumor is visualized in the region of the sphenoid sinus as a dense shadow that extends beyond the bone boundaries of the sinus.
Diagnosis of malignant tumors of the sphenoid sinus
Differentiate malignant tumors of the sphenoid sinus follows from a pituitary tumor, nasopharyngeal fibrosis, tertiary syphilis. Usually, the defeat of the pituitary gland by the tumor leads to a syndrome of hypothalamic-pituitary insufficiency, manifested as signs of a decrease in the production of triple hormones of the pituitary gland, including adrenocorticotropic and somatotropic, as well as many other increts. The clinical picture of hypothalamic-pituitary insufficiency is extremely diverse - from microsymptoms caused by the violation of the secretion of individual hormones, to pituitary cachexia, which proceeds heavily and rapidly and ends with pituitary coma (adynamia, stupor, hyponatremia, hypoglycemia, convulsions, hypothermia) and in combination with general cancer intoxication - fast coming 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 because of late diagnosis and impossibility due to the topografical and anatomic position of the sphenoid bone.
What prognosis are the malignant tumors of the sphenoid sinus?
Malignant tumors of the sphenoid sinus have a pessimistic prognosis.