Glomus Tumor as a Rare Cause of Dizziness

Glomus tumors were described by Rosenwasser in 1945 (1).Glomus body tumors, often abbreviated as glomus tumors, are also known as paragangliomas or chemodectomas.They are a family of benign hypervascular neoplasms arising from the chief cells of the paraganglionic tissues.Furthermore, glomus tumors have vascular structure, comprising cell bundles stained with non chromaffin among thin-walled vascular channels (2,3).These tumors are located on the head, neck, jugular foramen, middle ear cavity, and carotid bifurcation bodies; the vagus nerves are common areas where they are often encountered.Glomus tumors constitute 0.6% of head and neck cancers and 0.03% of all cancers (4).The elapsed time between the onset of symptoms of glomus tumors and their diagnosis may differ from a few months to as long as 25 years.The average diagnosis time can be approximately 3-4 years after the emergence of symptoms (5,6).A 62-year-old female patient came to our neurology clinic with complaints, which have been occasionally emerging for two years, such as dizziness, particularly when she turns her head to the right, feeling of lightness in the head, and a few times feeling of faintness lasting 10-15 s.Despite the symptomatic treatments, which were previously used after examinations, her symptoms did not recover and intermittently continued.Known hypertension was controlled with oral medications.In her general physical and neurological examination, there were no other symptoms, except dizziness, occurring when she turns her head to the right.Blood tests were within normal limits.Brain magnetic resonance imaging revealed several non-specific ischemic gliotic areas, and the patient had normal cardiac tests that were conducted in terms of differential diagnosis.The carotid vertebral ultrasound examination, conducted to exclude vascular causes, revealed on the right side, at the level of carotid bifurcation, a 20 x 20 x 33 mm in diameter and smooth bordered heterogeneous mass lesion, causing some compression on internal and external carotid arteries (ICA) and (ECA); increased vascular-signal was received inside and outside ICA and ECA.Further, in the spectral analysis low-resistance flow of the arterial structures in the mass was detected.On neck magnetic resonance imaging, solid lesion compatible with sharply demarcated glomus tumor, located between ICA and ECA, on the right in the level of carotid bifurcation, was detected; it revealed contrast enhancement (Figure 1, 2).After the patient was consulted