Proboscis lateralis: radiological evaluation

Abstract

Proboscis lateralis is a rare craniofacial anomaly. It consists of a soft, trunk-like process that originates from the medial portion of the orbital roof and it may be accompanied by a number of facial and cerebral anomalies. The characteristics and relationship of the lesion to adjacent structures should be known, and associated anomalies should be detected before surgical correction. The patient should undergo neuroimaging studies besides clinical evaluation to obtain this information in detail. The neuroimaging findings of only one previous case are available in the literature. We report two cases of proboscis lateralis evaluated by CT and MRI before corrective surgery.

Proboscis Lateralis: Evaluation of the Anomaly and a Review of Two Cases

“…16 Aplasia of the nasal cavity always accompanies proboscis lateralis if there is an aplastic nostril. 8,11,13,16,21 Guerrero et al 7 presented a case of choanal atresia of the ipsilateral nose, apparent in the patient's computed tomographic scan. In our second case, we used a General Electric Lightspeed 16-channel multislice computed tomography scanner and obtained 0.625-mm slice thickness axial images for radiological evaluations.…”

“…8 Evaluations of the proboscis with computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging have shown that the antrum nasi, ethmoids, and frontal sinuses may be absent as well. 21 Developments in radiodiagnostic techniques make it possible to diagnose this anomaly during the antenatal period. 4 This malformation is frequently associated with abnormalities of the eye and/or its adnexa and sometimes with a cleft lip and/or palate.…”

An Unusual Congenital Facial Anomaly

“…Despite that the curious location of the proboscis lateralis was attributed to the presence of a frontal meningoencephalocele in the original report, this case was mistakenly mentioned as an unusual form of the proboscis lateralis in which the anomaly arose from the lateral canthus in several reports published lately. [2][3][4][5][6][7]11,12 As clearly shown with the photographs in the original report, we do believe that the proboscis lateralis in this case arose from not the lateral canthus but a laterally displaced medial canthus due to the mass effect of an anterior meningoencephalocele forcing all orbital and periorbital structures laterally through a wide bony defect involving the medial orbital wall. Eliminating these 2 cases of so-called unusually located proboscis lateralis, we suggest that, unless the influence of unusual physical forces resulted from the associated anomalies distorting the craniofacial structures, the proboscis lateralis always arises from its typical location between the medial canthal region and the nasal midline.…”

“…1 It is characterized with a tube-like rudimentary nasal structure that originates from the medial portion of the orbital roof. [2][3][4] Here, an unusual case with a proboscis-like but erectile structure located at the right malar area is presented. Since there has been no report of a similar case in the literature, this seems to be the first case of a proboscis-like structure presenting an erectile feature, and being unusual, we thought it worth reporting.…”

Proboscis lateralis with ipsilateral sinonasal and olfactory pathway aplasia

“…It has a reported incidence of less than 1:100,000 [2], occurring in isolation or in association with a wide spectrum of anomalies including hemisinonasal aplasia spectrum, atypical cleft syndrome, abnormalities of eye/ocular adnexa, mental retardation, corpus callosum agenesis, and encephaloceles [3,4]. The detailed anatomical findings were reported first by Selenkoff [5] in 1884.…”