Nasopharyngeal angiofibroma in an elderly female patient: a rare case report

Juvenile' nasopharyngeal angiofibroma, which accounts for <1% of all head and neck neoplasms, occurs predominantly in males between 10 and 18 years of age. The small number of patients older than 30 years confirms that presentation after this age is exceptional. Only rare cases of nasopharyngeal angiofibroma in female patients have been documented to date, and some authors believe that sex chromosome studies are indicated in such cases. The pathogenesis of nasopharyngeal angiofibroma remains unknown, but it has been hypothesized that it is a testosterone-dependent tumor. We herein report a particularly rare case of a 68-year-old woman diagnosed with nasopharyngeal angiofibroma and describe the diagnostic and therapeutic workup. This case describes, to the best of our knowledge, the oldest patient reported in the literature.