Skip to main content

Frontal sinus nasopharyngeal carcinoma recurrence masquerading as chronic frontal sinusitis: a case report

Abstract

Recurrence of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is still a worrying issue despite the advent and advancement of treatment strategies. Presentation of recurrent NPC is different from primary NPC and indicates poor prognosis. Frontal sinus metastasis without any involvement of other sinuses is very rare and could be mistaken as sinusitis or mucocele. Owing to its rare occurrence, it presents a great challenge for clinicians to make a prompt diagnosis. The background chronic rhinosinusitis symptoms as a result of irradiation for NPC may masquerade the underlying paranasal sinus recurrence.

References

  1. Yeh SA, Tang Y, Lui CC, Huang YJ, Huang EY. Treatment outcomes and late complications of 849 patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma treated with radiotherapy alone. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 2005; 62:672–679.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Lahuri YS, Mohamad I, Hashim H. Nasopharyngeal carcinoma with metastases to colon. Egypt J Ear Nose Throat Allied Sci 2015; 16:201–204.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Li JX, Lu TX, Huang Y, Han F, Chen CY, Xiao WW. Clinical features of 337 patients with recurrent nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Chin J Cancer 2010; 29:82–86.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Leung SF, Teo PM, Shiu WW, Tsao SY, Leung TW. Clinical features and management of distant metastases of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. J Otolaryngol 1991; 20:27–29.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Katz TS, Mendenhall WM, Morris CG, et al. Malignant tumors of the nasal cavity and paranasal sinuses. Head Neck 2002; 24: 821–829.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Ikeuchi T, Asai N, Hori T, Hirao N, Tozawa K, Yamada Y, Kori K. Renal cell carcinoma detected by metastasis to the frontal sinus: a case report. Hinyokika Kiyo 1998; 44:89–92.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Koktekir E, Koktekir BE, Recber F, Akdemir G. Lung adenocarcinoma metastasis to frontal sinus mimicking Pott’s puffy tumor. J Craniofac Surg 2013; 24:e538–e539.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Gadzhimirzaev GA, Shakhnazarov AM. A case of a breast cancer metastasis to the frontal sinus. Vestn Otorinolaringol 2001; 6:55.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Lee AWM, Sze WM, Au JSK, et al. Treatment results for nasopharyngeal carcinoma in the modern era: The Hong Kong experience. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 2005; 61:1107–1116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Hanna E, DeMonte F, Ibrahim S, et al. Endoscopic resection of sinonasal cancers with or without craniotomy: oncologic results. Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 2009; 135:1219–1224.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Shah JP, Kraus DH, Bilsky MH, et al. Craniofacial resection for malignant tumors involving the anterior skull base. Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 1997; 123:1312–1317.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Li JX, Lu TX, Huang Y, Han F. Clinical characteristics of recurrent nasopharyngeal carcinoma in high-incidence area. ScientificWorldJournal 2012; 2012:719754.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Si Y, Wei H, Huang B, Lu J, Li B, Lan G, Zhou R, Zhang Z. Histomorphological changes of ethmoid sinuses mucosa in sinusitis patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma after radiotherapy [J]. Chinese Arch of Otolaryngol head Neck Surg 2005; 11:20.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Liew Yew Toong MS.

Additional information

This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.

Rights and permissions

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Toong, L.Y., Wah, L.P., Bakri, A. et al. Frontal sinus nasopharyngeal carcinoma recurrence masquerading as chronic frontal sinusitis: a case report. Egypt J Otolaryngol 35, 375–378 (2019). https://doi.org/10.4103/ejo.ejo_91_18

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.4103/ejo.ejo_91_18

Keywords