Unusual locations for differentiated thyroid cancer nodal metastasis

Rohit Ranganath; Vaninder K Dhillon; Mohammad Shaear; Lisa Rooper; Jonathon O Russell; Ralph P Tufano

doi:10.1016/j.wjorl.2020.01.011

Unusual locations for differentiated thyroid cancer nodal metastasis

World J Otorhinolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2020 Jun 16;6(3):176-181. doi: 10.1016/j.wjorl.2020.01.011. eCollection 2020 Sep.

Authors

Rohit Ranganath¹, Vaninder K Dhillon², Mohammad Shaear², Lisa Rooper³, Jonathon O Russell², Ralph P Tufano²

Affiliations

¹ Department of General Surgery, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, Shreveport, LA, USA.
² Division of Head and Neck Endocrine Surgery, Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
³ Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.

Abstract

Lymph node metastasis is common in differentiated thyroid cancer especially papillary thyroid cancer. Presence of lymph node metastasis does not have an impact on survival in younger patients. Therapeutic central and lateral neck dissection in the presence of clinically or radiologically evident lymph nodes has resulted in good overall survival. However, disease persistence in the lymph node/early recurrences may be seen in patients owing to lymph nodes that may be missed during the initial neck dissection. These observed locations are retropharyngeal and parapharyngeal nodal location, retro carotid location, sublingual, axillary, and intraparotid locations, supraclavicular and superficial to the sternothyroid muscle. We aim to highlight these locations with the goal to minimize persistence or early recurrence of disease at these locations.

Keywords: Differentiated thyroid cancer; Neck dissection; Nodal metastasis; Papillary thyroid cancer; Recurrent papillary thyroid cancer.

Publication types

Review