title: Primary papillary carcinoma of the thyroid arising in a branchial cyst: case report and review of the literature.
abstract: We report a case of papillary carcinoma of the thyroid that arose in a branchial cyst. The patient, a 45-year-old woman, presented with a left lateral neck mass of 3 months' duration. The cyst was removed intact. Because we could not rule out the possibility that a small primary malignancy was present within the gland, we performed a total thyroidectomy; however, no occult primary tumor of the thyroid was found. The patient was placed on thyroid hormone replacement therapy, and she was well at 2 years of follow-up. We briefly review the literature regarding the possible embryologic origin of such a phenomenon and the role of fine-needle aspiration cytology in differentiating a branchial cyst from a metastatic lymph node. To the best of our knowledge, this is only the 11th reported case of a thyroid papillary carcinoma arising in ectopic thyroid tissue within a branchial cyst, and the second such report from India.
authors: Department of Pathology, Sri Siddhartha Medical College, Tumkur, Karnataka, India. hvss77_tumkur@yahoo.in
authors: Parvathidevi K
authors: PK
authors: Gollahalli
authors: Panduranga
authors: P
authors: Chikkannaiah
authors: Vamseedhar
authors: V
authors: Annam
mesh_terms: D044963:Biopsy, Fine-Needle; D001935:Branchioma / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D002291:Carcinoma, Papillary / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D002828:Choristoma / Q000473:pathology; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006258:Head and Neck Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009378:Neoplasms, Multiple Primary / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D013961:Thyroid Gland / Q000473:pathology; D013964:Thyroid Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D013965:Thyroidectomy