Glial heterotopia is a rare disorder. However, it must be considered in the differential diagnosis of airway obstruction in the newborn. Differentiation of this lesion from nasal glioma and encephalocele is important.

In this paper we report a midline glial heterotopia, which presented with upper airway obstruction in a newborn. The origin of a glial heterotopia from the midline of the nasopharynx has not been reported before.

We present a review of the literature and discuss the clinical, radiological and pathological features of nasopharyngeal brain heterotopia in an infant.