Colon Carcinoma Metastasis to the Thyroid Gland: Report of a Case with a Review of the Literature

Abstract

Metastasis of colon cancer to the thyroid gland is very rare and we would like to report a case we have experienced, with a review of the literature. A 66-year-old woman noticed a swelling in the anterior neck area and sought medical attention at our department in August 2003. At age 63, she had undergone surgery for cancer of the ascending colon, but subsequently the cancer metastasized to the liver and she underwent an outer hepatic segmentectomy. Fine-needle aspiration cytology indicated adenocarcinoma with characteristic tall columnar cells, confirming our suspicion that metastasis from the ascending colon cancer had already occurred. Furthermore, lung metastasis was also suspected, because several nodules were found in the lungs. On August 13, resection of the left lobe of the thyroid gland and dissection of the cervical lymph nodes were performed. Histopathology showed metastasis of the ascending colon cancer to the thyroid and lymph nodes.

Thyroid Metastases from Gallbladder Cancer

“…Different reports suggest that the most common primary sites are the kidneys, lung, breast, and gastrointestinal tract. [11][12][13][14][15][16] Hematogenous and lymphogenous pathways are considered the route of metastases to the thyroid and have been demonstrated to occur as late as 10 years following resection of the primary tumor.…”

Rectal Adenocarcinoma Metastatic to the Thyroid Gland: Report of a Case with Review of Literature

“…The number of clinical reports of tumor metastasis to the thyroid is extremely small. To our knowledge, 32 clinical cases of metastasis of colorectal cancer to the thyroid have been reported to date [5,6].…”

“…The number of clinical cases with the metastasis of colorectal cancer to the thyroid as best we could search was 32 [1,5,6,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] (Table 1). We analyzed these cases, which were reported in detail.…”

“…There are only 32 reported cases of thyroid metastasis that were clinically evident before death being caused by metastatic colorectal cancer [5,6]. Thyroid metastasis may be associated with metastasis to other sites, like lung, liver, and adrenal, and hence, the prognosis seems to be very poor.…”

Metastases of kidney cancer into the thyroid gland (сlinical observation)

“…Причем среди всех злокаче-ственных новообразований чаще всего метастазируют опухоли почки (48,1 %), колоректальный рак (10,4 %), рак легких (8,3 %), рак молочной железы (7,8 %), ме-ланома (4 %) и саркома (4 %) [17,[19][20][21]. Но по ре-зультатам вскрытий частота метастазирования коле-Опухоли ГОЛОВЫ и ШЕИ HEAD and NECK tumors Том 7 Vol.…”