Simultaneous metastatic papillary thyroid carcinoma and carcinoid of the small intestine in the cervical lymph node group.

BACKGROUND

Malignancies, primary or metastatic, and infections are the main causative factors that should be included in the differential diagnosis of cervical adenopathy.

SUMMARY: We present a 56-year-old woman who was admitted to our department because of a supraclavicular mass. A neck dissection was performed and two different masses were excised. The histopathological examination showed that the larger mass (measuring 5 cm) was a block of lymph nodes with metastatic papillary carcinoma of the thyroid. In the adjacent fibroadipose tissue, two lymph nodes with metastatic carcinoid tumor were found. The smaller mass (measuring 2 cm) was a lymph node with metastatic carcinoid tumor. The patient underwent total thyroidectomy with ipsilateral radical neck dissection. Histopatological examination of the thyroid gland showed a lesion of papillary carcinoma, measuring 0.6 cm. No further lesions of carcinoid were found.

CONCLUSIONS

To our knowledge, this is the first report of a coexistence of metastatic papillary thyroid carcinoma and intestinal carcinoid tumor in cervical lymph nodes.