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CASE REPORT article

Front. Oncol.
Sec. Surgical Oncology
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1480087

Case Report: Multiple mesenchymal hamartomas showing spontaneous motility in the nasopharynx

Provisionally accepted
Tetsuya Kinoshita Tetsuya Kinoshita 1Masamitsu Kono Masamitsu Kono 1Ryuta Iwamoto Ryuta Iwamoto 2MASAYOSHI HIJIYA MASAYOSHI HIJIYA 1Saori Takeda Saori Takeda 1Makiko Ohtani Makiko Ohtani 1Mikako Doyama Mikako Doyama 2Daichi Murakami Daichi Murakami 1Shunji Tamagawa Shunji Tamagawa 1Shin-Ichi Murata Shin-Ichi Murata 2Muneki Hotomi Muneki Hotomi 1*
  • 1 Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Wakayama Medical University, Wakayama, Japan
  • 2 Department of Human Pathology, Wakayama Medical University, Wakayama, Japan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Hamartomas are classified as either epithelial, mesenchymal, or epithelium-mesenchymal mixed types. They occur extremely rarely in the nasopharynx. A 58-year-old man had multiple tumors with repeating contraction and relaxation in the nasopharynx shown on endoscopy. One of the tumors was endoscopically resected under general anesthesia for histological examination and was finally diagnosed as mesenchymal hamartoma. Smooth muscle tissue is sometimes confirmed in mesenchymal hamartomas, but spontaneous contraction in nasopharyngeal hamartomas is rare. In this case, coexistence of muscle tissue, Cajal interstitial cell-like cells and ganglion cells was thought to be a mechanism of spontaneous motility of the tumors. Aberrant or residual foregut tissue in the nasopharynx due to embryological factors may be a contributing factor to the multiple occurrences.

    Keywords: hamartoma1, nasopharynx2, multiple occurrences3, spontaneous motility4, interstitial cell of Cajal5

    Received: 13 Aug 2024; Accepted: 03 Feb 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Kinoshita, Kono, Iwamoto, HIJIYA, Takeda, Ohtani, Doyama, Murakami, Tamagawa, Murata and Hotomi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Muneki Hotomi, Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Wakayama Medical University, Wakayama, Japan

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