Successful surgical management of a Shamblin 3 carotid body tumor in Ghana: a case report.

The carotid body is a parasympathetic paraganglion located at the carotid bifurcation. A carotid body tumor is a rare paraganglioma arising from the carotid body. They are benign tumors that often present as slow-growing, painless lateral neck masses. We present a 45-year-old woman with a 6-year history of a slowly progressive left lateral neck swelling, which was initially painless but subsequently became associated with intermittent, non-radiating, dull-aching pain. Examination showed a hemodynamically stable woman with an ovoid-shaped left lateral neck swelling extending from below the angle of the mandible to the supraclavicular region measuring 3cm x 5cm. A contrast-enhanced cervical computed tomography (CT) scan showed an intensely enhancing soft tissue within the left carotid sheath, which splays the internal and external carotid arteries and also encases the carotid bifurcation and internal jugular vein, making it a Shamblin 3 carotid body tumor, which is difficult to resect. She was worked up for neck exploration and excision biopsy under general anaesthesia. Post-operatively, there was no report of injuries to the spinal accessory, hypoglossal, or vagus nerves. She made an uneventful recovery and was discharged home. Complete surgical resection of carotid body tumors with no postoperative complications is feasible even in a low-resource setting.