Vol.100 No.7 contentsPRACTICA OTO-RHINO-LARYNGOLOGICA
Vol. 100 No. 7 Jury 2007
A Case of Tonsillar Carcinoma Presenting
as a Pendular Tonsil
Fusako Iikuni, Sohei Endo, Minoru Ikeda and Akinori Kida
(Nihon University School of Medicine)
In most cases, pendular tonsils are benign. We report a 75-year-old man who presented with a pendular tonsil which was finally diagnosed as a squamous cell carcinoma of the tonsil. The patient was seen with the chief complaint of a foreign body in his throat. On his first visit, a smooth-surfaced pedunculated mass protruding from the lower pole of the right palatine tonsil was observed. Biopsy of the pendular lesion revealed a squamous cell carcinoma. Extended right tonsillectomy was performed. Pathological examination of the lesion revealed squamous cell carcinomas in the pendular tonsil as well as in the palatine tonsil. At present, no recurrence has been observed and his clinical course is favorable. It is necessary to perform a histological examination for every case of pendular tonsil.
Key words : pendular tonsil, squamous cell carcinoma, histological examination