title: Is Every Patient Followed up as a Papillary Thyroid Cancer Patient Really That?
abstract: We report the case of a 64-year-old man followed up for two years as suffering from differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC). In the patient's follow up, despite thyroglobulin level and I-131 whole body scan results being normal, metastases were identified at the 4th thoracic vertebra corpus by MR. Histopathological findings were carcinoma metastases. F-18 FDG PET/CT showed increased metabolic activity in the right renal mass, bilaterally in the surrenal gland, multiple lymph nodes in the thoracic and abdominal para-aortic region and in multiple vertebral and pelvic bones. An excisional biopsy of the right renal mass was reported as renal cell carcinoma. Immunohistochemical staining performed retrospectively to the first thyroid preparation showed renal cell carcinoma metastases. Consequently, any patient who presents with a thyroid nodule can also be considered as possibly suffering from metastatic disease. F-18 FDG PET/CT can provide valuable information in finding the primary focus and metastases.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  None declared.
authors.affiliation: Erciyes University School of Medicine, Department of Nuclear Medicine, Kayseri, Turkey.
authors.forename: Ummuhan
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Abdulrezzak
authors.forename: Ahmet
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tutus
authors.forename: Mustafa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kula
authors.forename: Figen
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Oztürk
authors.forename: Işın
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Soyuer
keywords: Positron-emission tomography; Thyroid nodule; carcinoma; renal cell