Case of Incidental Asymptomatic Carotid Body Paraganglioma in a Patient with Infectious Mononucleosis.

A paraganglioma is a rare form of neuroendocrine tumor of neural crest cell origin. These tumors arise from autonomic ganglia, and are classified based on their origin in the autonomic nervous system, with sympathetic paragangliomas being more commonly located in the abdomen and parasympathetic paragangliomas more commonly found in the head and neck region. Paragangliomas have a characteristically slow growth rate, and while many will present due to symptoms of mass effect or from hyper functional catecholamine secretion, some tumors are diagnosed incidentally on imaging studies.