Laterocervical lymph node metastases from suspected thyroidal primary site that turned out to be metastases of lung cancer: A case report

Incidental sonographic discovery of thyroid nodules is an increasingly common event in clinical practice. Less frequently, patients with cytological benign thy roid nodules have suspicious cervical lymph nodes detected by ultrasound ex amination or by cytological exam. Here, we discuss an intriguing case of cervical lymph node metastasis with a probable thyroid origin in a 65-year-old asympto matic male smoker. He underwent thyroidectomy and unilateral cervical lym phadenectomy. Despite a negative chest X-ray, the postoperative histological examination revealed that the lymph node metastasis was actually from a lung carcinoma. Metastatic lesions in cervical lymph nodes from non-thyroidal origins must be excluded when evaluating lesions in the region, especially when thy roid nodules subjected to fine needle aspiration biopsy yield negative results, or lymph node cytological evaluations are inconsistent with thyroid cytological find ings and sonographic features. Thyroid and lung adenocarcinomas share some epithelial and mesenchymal markers. Thyroglobulin helps differentiate primary thyroid tumors from lung ones, but in cases of poor differentiation, distinguish ing metastatic lesions in the thyroid gland can be challenging. Lung cancer (LC) is the leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide, and survival rates have only marginally improved over the last several decades. The ongoing clinical challenge is detecting LC at earlier stages of the disease.