A case of nasal neuroendocrine carcinoma with spinal epidural abscess

A 65-year-old man was referred to our hospital as an emergency case due to severe posterior neck pain and dysphagia which appeared 6 months after a diagnosis of right acute dacryocystitis.The patient was diagnosed with prevertebral abscess, posterior cervical abscess, and spinal epidural abscess due to the spread of sinusitis triggered by a tumor in the right nasal cavity.In addition to antibiotic therapy, a posterior pharyngeal wall incision was performed to drain the prevertebral abscess, and CT-guided drainage was performed for the posterior cervical and spinal epidural abscesses, and finally the abscesses were cured.The nasal cavity tumor was diagnosed as cT4bN0M0, Stage B nasal neuroendocrine carcinoma by biopsy and image examination, and the patient was treated with proton beam therapy with cisplatin and is now under follow-up observation without recurrence.Neuroendocrine carcinoma is treated similarly to small cell carcinoma of the lung.There have been no reports of spinal epidural abscesses derived from sinonasal diseases.We report here a rare case of neuroendocrine carcinomas accompanied with deep neck abscesses, with a review of the literature.