Published Paper Details:

Rare causes of vascular parotid swellings that may cause diagnostic error. Indeed, the additional examinations will have to be appropriate thus allowing an adapted therapeutic management. Pseudo-aneurysms of the external carotid artery or its branches are rare [1] and often secondary to trauma. We present the case of a 29-year-old patient who consulted for a left intra-parotid lesion in March 2020 following a shock on the left upward limb of the mandible occurring 4 days before. At the initial clinical examination, he found a palpable mass 2 cm in diameter, deep retro-mandibular, not pulsatile. Angioscan performed in emergency objectified after injection of contrast agent in favor of an aneurysm of the external carotid intra-parotid portion. Pseudo-aneurysms of the extra-cranial arteries are rare and most often post-traumatic, frequently affecting the internal carotid artery [2]. Only 7 cases are described in the literature [3]: 4 on the intra-parotid part of the external carotid artery, 2 on the superficial temporal artery and 1 on the posterior auricular artery [7].The different treatments include observation with regular monitoring, surgical excision, presso therapy and embolization [3,5]. In this case, the treatment consisted of embolizing the external carotid artery. Therefore, it seems to us essential to think about this pathology in case of atypical lesion before any invasive gesture. Although rare, and even if there is no trauma, it seems important to us to evoke the pseudo-aneurysms of the external carotid artery or one of its branches.