Huge dumbbell shaped glossopharyngeal schwannoma

Schwannomas arising from the 9th, 10th and 11th cranial nerves (also called jugular foramen schwannoma) without associated neurofibromatosis are relatively uncommon [1]. Schwannomas arising from the glossopharyngeal nerve are rare and fewer than 50 cases have been reported in the literature [1-4]. Glossopharyngeal schwannoma presenting in childhood is extremely rare and to our knowledge only 4 cases have been reported before [2, 5-7]. Case Report: We present a 17 years old boy with a history of slow growing neck mass from eight years ago. He mentioned no change neither in the sense of hearing nor in the force or sense of his extremities and had no complaint of vertigo, dizziness, headache or vomiting. There was also no complaint pertaining to other organ systems and his sole problem was his neck mass. There was no similar problem in his family. Examination revealed a 7*5 cm mass in the right anterolateral part of the neck (beneath the sternocleidomastoid muscle and angle of the mandible) without any sign of inflammation such as redness, warmth or tenderness. He has some limitation of rotating the head and lateral flexion in the same site due to the mass. Function of the cranial nerves was normal and audiologic tests showed normal hearing.