Introduction:

paraganglioma is the tumor that develops from the neural crest originating from chromaffin cells, it can be located throughout the body. They are more common in the head and neck at the level of the carotid body, as they increase in size surrounding but not obstructing the arteries. Infrequently they present malignant transformation suggesting surgical resection.

Objective:

to assess the usefulness of management by interventional radiology when performing selective embolization of paragangliomas of the carotid body prior to surgical excision, evaluating the reduction in surgical time and the volume of transoperative bleeding.

Material and methods:

a retrospective, observational, longitudinal, and comparative study was carried out, including 29 patients (23 women and 6 men) with a confirmed diagnosis of carotid body paraganglioma by radiological studies (tomography with angiography and Doppler ultrasound) dividing the patients sampled into two groups for comparative analysis. Group A: with previous embolization (n = 14), group B: without previous embolization (n = 15).

Results:

in group a patients, a single session of selective embolization of the paraganglioma was performed. The average bleeding and surgical time in group A were 60 mL and 1.4 hours, respectively. The average bleeding and surgical time in group B were 318 mL and 3 hours, respectively. A Mann-Whitney U test was performed to compare the differences, obtaining a statistically significant value of p < 0.001.

Conclusions:

transarterial embolization of hypervascular tumors has an essential advantage by significantly reducing the average surgical time and intraoperative bleeding.