Sinonasal Chondrosarcoma Presenting With Isolated Severe Vision Loss.

ABSTRACT: A 24-year-old man presented with a 2-month history of progressive, painless vision loss in the right eye, with no history of headache, nasal congestion, rhinorrhea, or epistaxis. His visual acuity was counting fingers at 1 ft in the right eye and 20 of 20 in the left eye with a right relative afferent pupillary defect and mild temporal optic disc pallor. MRI of the brain and orbits showed a mass involving bilateral ethmoid and sphenoid sinuses and right nasal cavity. He underwent urgent extended endoscopic endonasal transsphenoidal approach for resection of the sinonasal skull base tumor and photon radiation therapy. Pathology revealed a well-differentiated cartilaginous neoplasm with focal areas of entrapped native bone, consistent with a chondrosarcoma WHO grade I/III. At 6-month follow-up after surgery, he had a visual acuity of 20/40 in the right eye and 20/20 in the left eye. Malignant tumors from the sinonasal area should be kept in the differential diagnosis for compressive optic neuropathies and may present with vision loss even in the absence of nasal or sinus symptoms.