The Effectiveness of the Sclerotherapy of Benign Neck Cyst with the Use of OK-432 and 99% Alcohol

Kim, Myung Gu

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
In most cases of benign neck cysts, surgical excision has been considered the definite treatment. However, it is difficult to excise cysts completely in some cases. In view of this, non-surgical treatment for these lesions has been attempted with sclerosing agents. Some authors presented case reports on using OK-432 or 99% Alcohol sclerotherapy. In this study, we compared OK-432 and 99% Alcohol sclerotherapy with regards to effectiveness and complications associated in treating benign neck cyst. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: We retrospectively reviewed 29 patients who had undergone sclerotherapy with OK-432 or 99% Alcohol for benign neck cyst, such as ranula, lymphangioma, thyroglossal duct cyst and branchial cleft cyst. Information was gathered with respect to age, sex, number of injections, post-sclerotherapy side effects and outcome of treatments. RESULT: In the OK-432 sclerotherapy, 16 patients (69.6%) showed complete response, and 5 patients (20.7%) showed intermediate response. No response was seen in 2 patients (9.7%). In the 99% Alcohol sclerotherapy, 5 patients (83.3%) showed complete response, and 1 patient (16.7%) showed intermediate response. The side effects observed from intracystic injection therapy with OK-432 and 99% Alcohol were fever (55.2%) and localized pain (44.8%). In the OK-432 sclerotherapy, 18 patients (78.3%) had complications, In the 99% Alcohol, 3 patients (50%) had complications. However, these complications spontaneously disappeared after several days in all the cases. CONCLUSION: The results showed that OK-432 and 99% Alcohol injection is an effective and safe treatment for benign neck cyst. The effectiveness of OK-432 and 99% Alcohol injection is very similar.