Ancient cervical vagal neurilemmoma a case report

Abstract

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.