Attempts at surgery for
carotid body tumors have been made for over 100 years.
Carotid body tumours: a review of a 20-year experience.
Impact of preoperative embolization on outcomes of
carotid body tumor resections.
Iturriaga, "Contribution of inflammation on
carotid body chemosensory potentiation induced by intermittent hypoxia," Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol.
Arterial chemoreceptors in the
carotid body play an important physiological role in the chemotransduction of chemical changes in the arterial blood, which is essential to elicit the chemoreflex for rapid adjustment of respiratory and cardiovascular activities to maintain blood gases and pH homeostasis.
Researchers of University of Bristol found that by removing the
carotid body connection to the brain in rodents with high blood pressure, blood pressure fell and remained low.
KEY WORDS:
Carotid Body Tumor; Carotid Arteries; Cranial Nerve Diseases.
Researchers working in genetics, oncology, biology, biochemistry, pediatrics, neuroscience, and other sciences in North America, Europe, and Australia address vascularization, ARD hydroxylation, hypoxia-inducible factor transcription factors, iron and oxygen homeostasis, mechanisms that lead to cell injury and morbidity or adaption and survival, mitochondria, molecular imaging, AMP-activated protein kinase, oxygen sensing in the
carotid body, DNA modifications, and other topics.
Carotid body tumors are rare, benign, vascular, slow growing and invasive to adjacent structures.
These cells occur in several body locations such as the
carotid body, aortic body, nodose ganglion of the vagus nerve, ciliary ganglion in the orbit, pancreas, bodies on the internal jugular vein below the ear, and glomus jugulare located at the recurrent branch of the glossopharyangeal nerve (CAPEN, 2002; 2007).
Carotid chemodectomas are called paragangliomas or
carotid body tumors (Fig 1).
The physiologic benefits of supplemental oxygen are understood: It promotes oxygen supply to the body's tissues and inhibits activity of the
carotid body, which monitors oxygen levels in the blood, explained Dr.
