Importance of pre-operative embolization in the surgery of nasopharyngeal angiofibroma

Juvenile Nasopharyngeal Angiofibroma are rare vasoformative¹ neoplasms of the Nasopharynx. Due to innocuous nature of their presenting symptoms, the tumour frequently has extranasopharyngeal extensions at the time of initial diagnosis. The advances in radiographic CT techniques² and pre-operative embolization³ have reduced the mortality and morbidity to a great extent. We analysed nine cases of angiofibroma with and without embolization and concluded that preoperative embolization reduces intraoperative blood loss considerably giving excellent surgical clearance of the tumour mass with minimal risk of recurrence.