Nasopharyngeal carcinoma presenting as carotidynia in an 18-year-old patient.

INTRODUCTION

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma can present with a variety of symptoms the most common being painless cervical lymph node metastases, epistaxis and conductive hearing loss.

CASE REPORT: We report a case of an 18-year-old male patient presenting to the ENT department with left sided carotidynia - severe pain in the neck radiating up to his ear. He had a small, exquisitely tender lump just below the bifurcation of the left common carotid artery. After the appropriate investigations he was diagnosed with nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

DISCUSSION: In a literature search on Medline and Pubmed we found no reported cases of nasopharyngeal carcinoma presenting with carotidynia, nor was carotidynia ever found to be associated with nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

CONCLUSION

We believe that this is the first reported case of such a presentation of nasopharyngeal carcinoma.