Classifications of nasopharyngeal mass include:
(1) congenital vs acquired
(2) benign vs malignant
(3) inflammatory vs noninflammatory
(4) cystic vs solid
Differential diagnosis of a nasopharyngeal mass:
(1) antrochoanal polyp
(2) craniopharyngioma
(3) ectopic pituitary tissue
(4) hamartoma
(5) nasal glioma (glial nodule)
(6) nasopharyngeal cyst
(7) nasopharyngeal encephalocele
(8) Rathke cleft cyst (benign cyst associated with the pituitary gland that occurs when the Rathke pouch fails to involute)
(9) Thornwaldt cyst (a congenital remanant of contact between primitive notochord and pharyngeal endoderm)
(10) vascular malformation
(11) adenoidal hypertrophy
(12) nasal polyp
(13) inverted papilloma
(14) juvenile angiofibroma
(15) malignant lymphoma (NK cell, etc)
(16) nasopharyngeal carcinoma
(17) sarcoma (rhabdoimyosarcoma, other)
(18) metastatic carcinoma
(19) other tumor
Imaging studies may be helpful in determining the extent of a lesion and may suggests its nature. This can help to avoid problems if the lesion is biopsied.
