Follicular variant of papillary carcinoma arising from lingual thyroid

by Churunal K. Hari, FRCS, Manoj Kumar, FRCS, Mohamed M. Abo-Khatwa, FRCS, Julia Adams-Williams, MRCS, and Hisham Zeitoun, MPhil, FRCS | Monday, June 01, 2009

IntroductionLingual thyroid is a relatively rare developmental anomaly resulting from the failure of thyroid primordium to migrate from its embryonic site of origin, the foramen cecum, to its normal anatomic position in the neck. Although postmortem studies have shown an incidence of 10% for lingual thyroid, the clinical incidence is much lower and varies between 1 in 3,000 and 1 in 100,000.1 It is likely that the only thyroid tissue in these patients is the lingual thyroid.2 The occurrence of malignancies in lingual thyroid is rare, and the incidence has been estimated to be 1 to 3%.3,4 The incidence of the papillary type of lingual thyroid cancers is also rare, with only 10 reported cases. We present a case of a follicular variant of papillary carcinoma originating from the lingual thyroid, the only functioning thyroid tissue in this patient.Case reportA 49-year-old Caucasian woman was referred to our ENT outpatient clinic with a history of intermittent voice change. Fiberoptic .../continued/

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