The carcinoma of the external auditory canal – an incidental finding

Introduction External auditory canal carcinomas are a very rare. The incidence is about 1-6 of 1 Mio. residents.

Often a lot of time, sometimes month or years, is lost till the diagnosis is clear. The reason for this loss of time is maybe the variety of differential diagnosis.

Case In this case we report from an 57-year old patient , who presented a recurrent otorrhoea since 5 months and some granulations in the right external auditory canal. With the suspected diagnosis of an external auditory canal cholesteatoma the patient underwent canalplasty with reconstruction and a tympanoplasty (typ 1). The histological findings showed a moderately differentiated squamous cell carcinom (G2). Therefore a radical mastoidectomy and a revision tympanoplasty was done. After this surgical treatment the histological findings showed inflammation but no remaining squamous cell carcinoma. The TNM-classification was cTx cN0 cM0 Rx. With this results we presented the case at our interdisciplinary tumor converence. In consensus we decided to forego the radiatio. After this the patient remained closely controlled. Till 7 months no relapsing carcinoma was detected.

Conclusion: External auditory ear canal carcinomas are rare but very severe differential diagnosis of external ear diseases. The prognosis is in the majority of the cases poor. So we recommend an early histological clarification.

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Publication History

Article published online:
13 May 2021