Özet:
SchwannoInas (neurilemmomas) are benign,
encapsulated tumors of neural sheath
origin. Although more commonly encountered
in the extremities, approximately 25 % of
the cases are originated from the neural structures
of head and neck region. 1 Ancient
schwannoma is a rare variant of schwannomas.
It was first described by Ackerman and
Taylor 2 in 1951. In this series of 48 neurogenous
tumors of the thorax, the investigators
reported 10 cases that differed from the rest of
the cases with their distinctive histopathologic
characteristics such as large areas of
hyalinized matrix, increased hypercellularity
with nuclear pleomorphism, and hyperchromatism.
Ackerman and Taylor stated that these
features occurred in the schwannomas of long
duration, and thus they designated the entity
as ancient schwannoma. First ancient
schwannoma of head and neck region was
reported by Eversole and Howell 3 in 1971.
Most of the reported head and neck cases were
found to be located at pharyngeal walls or oral
cavity, with 2 exceptions of infratemporal
fossa and parotid regions. To the best of our
knowledge, the following is the first reported
case of an ancient cervical vagal schwannoma.