A SCHWANNOMA is an encapsulated, nodular, slowly growing, vascular, usually benign tumor arising within or on the side of a nerve trunk and is believed to originate from the cells of the neurilemma, or the sheath of Schwann. It may grow to a large size, but it is painless in character and gives symptoms due to pressure. After complete removal recurrences are rare.
Verocay,1 in 1910, first described this tumor and termed it a neurinoma. The scanty references in the literature to this tumor in the pharynx bear out Orton's2 statement that it is one of the rarest tumors of the pharynx. There is no uniformity of nomenclature. It has been variously referred to as a schwannoma,3 gliofibrosarcoma,2 peripheral glioma,2 solitary neurofibroma,4 perineural fibroblastoma,4a neurofibroma,5 neurinoma5 and neurilemmoma.6
Ewing1 stated that the Schwann cells contribute to most of the growth but that the endoneural cells also multiply and concentric groups