Nasal chondromesenchymal hamartoma: an upper respiratory tract analogue of the chest wall mesenchymal hamartoma.

Nasal chondromesenchymal hamartoma is the suggested appellation for a tumefactive process of the nasal passages and contiguous paranasal sinuses in seven children with a detectable mass in the nose. With the exception of one patient who was 7 years of age at diagnosis, the others were 3 months of age or less upon recognition of the mass. Two children were diagnosed in the first 2 weeks of life. Imaging studies showed a complex solid and cystic mass or masses filling the nasal cavity and extending into the ethmoid sinuses in most cases. Erosion of the surrounding bone, including the cribriform plate, resulted in an intracranial component in the four cases. Surgical resection was the treatment of choice despite its technical difficulties that often necessitated a combined intranasal and intracranial approach. Residual disease with continued growth in one case was the clinical outcome in two children, and the remaining five patients have not experienced any further difficulties. The piecemeal fragments of tissue disclosed a collage of histologic features, but the basic morphologic elements were well-demarcated nodules of cartilage with some variation in the cellular density and maturation of the chondrocytes, a myxoid to spindle cell stroma, focal osteoclastlike giant cells in the stroma, and erythrocyte-filled spaces resembling those of the aneurysmal bone cyst. Two of the tumors were less polymorphous or complex in their spectrum of histologic features. These nasal masses have similarities to the so-called chest wall hamartoma or mesenchymal hamartoma of the chest wall in terms of the clinical presentation in infancy and the basic cartilaginous character of both entities. There is a degree of presumption in the designation of these nasal and chest wall tumors as hamartomas because the pathogenesis has not been established for either entity.