Aberrant carotid artery in the middle ear: Multislice CT imaging aids in diagnosis

An aberrant internal carotid artery in the middle ear has a high likelihood of being misdiagnosed as a glomus tumor, a hemangioma, or effusive otitis media, and a large loss of blood may result from performance of tympanotomy or unnecessary biopsy. To prevent this, it is important for the physician to be knowledgeable regarding this disease entity. The authors recently encountered a patient in whom this condition was suspected on the basis of the tympanic findings. Image diagnosis using multislice computed tomography (MSCT) resulted in accurate diagnosis of a case of aberrant internal carotid artery in the middle ear. The details of this case are presented herein.