CLINICAL CASES   

Giornale Italiano di Chirurgia Vascolare 1998 December;5(4):247-57

Copyright © 2000 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English, Italian

The carotid chemodectoma

Angelini R., De Luca M., Baiocchi G., Di Nardo E., Santarelli M., Ucchino S., Spigonardo F.

From the Surgical Unit ASL Chieti, Chieti, Italy

The glom­ic ­tumour or chem­o­dec­to­ma is a ­rare ­tumour ­with an unpre­dict­able bio­log­i­cal evo­lu­tion. It is usu­al­ly not func­tion­al, ­although ­rare vasoac­tive ­amine-secret­ing ­forms ­have ­been ­described. Surgery is the ­only ­form of resol­u­tive ther­a­py and the tech­nique var­ies accord­ing to the infil­tra­tion or oth­er­wise of carot­id ves­sels. Operative mor­tal­ity fol­low­ing rad­i­cal treat­ment was pro­hib­i­tive ­until a few ­decades ago (33%), but the cur­rent ­series ­show ­more accept­able per­cent­ag­es (1-3%). The ­authors ­report the medi­um-­term (33 ­months) ­results of 4 cas­es under­go­ing sur­gery. All ­aspects regard­ing glom­ic ­tumours are dis­cussed in ­detail, pay­ing spe­cial atten­tion to the ­most appro­pri­ate diag­nos­tic pro­ce­dure and the sur­gi­cal tech­niques ­used. The ­authors ­also exam­ine pub­lished ­data regard­ing mor­bid­ity in rela­tion to sur­gi­cal tech­nique and ­long-­term ­results.