Risk Factors for Stroke During Surgery for Carotid Body Tumors

Excerpt

The article by Gwon et al. [1] describes 17 carotid body tumor (CBT) resections, resulting in four patients (23.5%) having a postoperative stroke and one case of permanent cranial nerve damage. The article once again shows that CBT surgery can be challenging because of neurovascular structures that are adjacent to or involved in the tumor. This is particularly true for larger CBTs that encompass the carotid arteries, as evidenced by the fact that three of four strokes were encountered after resection of a Shamblin III [2] tumor. When considering the very high percentage of postoperative stroke in the reported series, it should be stressed that CBTs are benign and slow-growing tumors in which conservative management should always be considered. …