A patient with sinonasal leiomyoma presenting with exophthalmos: Case report and review of the literature

A 71-year-old woman presented with a 2-month history of progressive exophthalmos. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed a tumor occupying the right frontal sinus that compressed the right orbit and eye ball. The tumor was resected through a right frontal craniotomy. The pathologic diagnosis was leiomyoma and similar to the histologic diagnosis of a uterine leiomyoma resected 4 years earlier. We suggest that this rare sinonasal leiomyoma was a benign metastasizing leiomyoma from the uterus to the nasal sinus. Neurology Asia 2013; 18(3) : 327 – 330 Address correspondence to: Tomoko HANADA, M.D., Department of Neurosurgery, Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Kagoshima University, 8-35-1 Sakuragaoka, Kagoshima 890-8544, Japan. Tel: +81-99-275-5375, Fax: +81-99-265-4041, e-mail: [email protected] INTRODUCTION Leiomyomas are benign myogenic tumors that most commonly arise in the uterus. Other organs lacking smooth muscle are rarely involved and neck and head lesions are particularly rare. To our knowledge, only 10 sinonasal leiomyomas have been reported in English literature to date. Benign metastasizing leiomyoma (BML) was first documented in 1939. The term BML has since been used to describe multiple benign leiomyomatous lesions in patients with a previous history of leiomyoma of the uterus. We present here a patient with BML to the nasal sinus.