title: Surgical treatment of benign parapharyngeal space tumours. Presentation of two clinical cases and revision of the literature.
abstract: Parapharyngeal space (PPS) tumours, most of them benign, account for some 0.5% of tumours of the head and neck. The importance of these tumours lies mainly in two aspects: on the one hand, the difficulty of early diagnosis, due to the lack of symptoms in the initial stages and, on the other, the extreme complications of performing surgery in the parapharyngeal region. This article discusses two clinical cases of parapharyngeal space tumours: a 45 year old man and a 60 year old woman. We revise the scientific literature and analyse the diagnostic and therapeutic procedures used, placing special emphasis on describing the different surgical approaches to the parapharyngeal space: transcervical, transcervical-transparotid, transpalatal or transoral, transmandibular and orbitozygomatic, all of which, used alone or combined with others, allow for complete resection of these tumours with minimum morbidity.
authors.affiliation: Servicio de Cirugía Oral y Maxilofacial, Hospital Povisa, Vigo, Spain. martinfdezferro@yahoo.es
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fernández Ferro
authors.forename: Jacinto
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fernández Sanromán
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Costas López
authors.forename: Jesús
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sandoval Gutiérrez
authors.forename: Annahys
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: López de Sánchez
mesh_terms: D008949:Adenoma, Pleomorphic / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010306:Parotid Gland / Q000601:surgery; D010307:Parotid Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D010614:Pharynx / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*