The most common benign nasopharyngeal tumour. It is probably hamartomatous in origin. Although benign it can grow to an enormous size and invade local structures.
It is seen virtually exclusively in males, usually in teenagers.
It is a highly vascular tumour which can present with severe epistaxis. Biopsy is extremely hazardous due to the risk of haemorrhage. Part of the radiological work up should assess the extent of the lesion and its vascularity. Some require embolisation prior to surgery to reduce the blood supply.
MR is better at showing the soft tissue extent of the tumour. Subtle bone destruction requires CT.
Characteristically the tumour is of low to intermediate signal intensity on both T1 and T2 weighted sequences. Discrete punctate areas of hypointensity are seen due to flow void channels in highly vascular stroma.
