Parapharyngeal metastasis from papillary thyroid microcarcinoma

Abstract

Carcinoma of the thyroid gland is one of the most commonly encountered endocrine malignancies. Papillary carcinoma is the most common histological type and its pattern of metastasis are usually lymphatic. Lymphatic metastasis to parapharyngeal space is rare and have been reported, so we report a case of 50-year-old male patient who had an occult papillary carcinoma of the thyroid presented as right lateral node of the neck and a nodal involvement of the right parapharyngeal space.

Keywords

• metastasis
• unknown primary
• papillary carcinoma
• parapharyngeal metastasis
• neck dissection