Myositis ossificans traumatica of sternocleidomastoid muscle presenting as cervical lymph-node metastasis.

It is well known that clinical assessment of the metastatic status of the cervical lymph nodes in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the upper aerodigestive tract is frequently inaccurate, and several causes for false-positive assessments are well described. We report a novel cause, namely, a case of myositis ossificans traumatica of the sternocleidomastoid muscle, which presented as a neck mass after a direct laryngoscopy for biopsy of a laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma. The importance of this lesion is that it should be considered in the clinical differential diagnosis of swellings in the neck.