Uncommon presentation of orbital schwanomma: A case report

INTRODUCTION: Schwannomas are well-differentiated solitary benign tumors that originate from the schwann cells of the nerve sheath, constitute 1–8% of all head and neck tumors and 1–4% of the orbital tumors. SUMMARY OF THE CLINICAL CASE: A 57-year-old female patient visited our department, because she has a blindness of the right eye associated with an irreducible exophthalmia classified grade III, 4 years ago. Radiological exploration showed a mass in the orbital cone in relation to a probable optic nerve schwannoma confirmed by biopsy. The affected eye was exenterated because of delayed diagnosis. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: In this review we discuss the pertinent clinical findings of this rare lesion and review the literature relative to optic nerve and solitary orbital schwannomas and insist that aggressive surgery with total mass removal should be warned by early diagnosis.