Paragangliomas : Figure 1

42 year old woman with right ear pain was found to harbor a destructive vascular tumor in the right petrous temporal bone (upper images, black arrowheads) most compatible with a glomus jugulare tumor, a type of paraganglioma. Because these tumors are highly vascular, embolization, an arterial blockage procedure, was performed prior to surgical resection. The arteriogram of the right external carotid artery (lower left) shows marked tumor blush with iodinated contrast indicative of its highly vascular nature (arrows). Following pre-operative embolization, blood flow to and within the tumor is markedly reduced (lower right, arrows) allowing safe and effective resection of the tumor with minimal blood loss.