From the Archives of the AFIP

Abstract

Cervical congenital cystic masses constitute an uncommon group of lesions usually diagnosed in infancy and childhood. The most common congenital neck mass is the thyroglossal duct cyst. The diagnosis is easily established from the presence of a cystic lesion in the anterior midline portion of the neck. The vast majority of branchial cleft cysts arise from the second branchial cleft. They can occur anywhere from the oropharyngeal tonsillar fossa to the supraclavicular region of the neck. Cystic hygroma is the most common form of lymphangioma. In the neck, cystic hygromas are most commonly found in the posterior cervical space. They typically extend into adjacent structures without respecting the fascial planes. Dermoid and epidermoid cysts result from sequestration of ectodermal tissue. The floor of the mouth is the most common location in the neck. Cervical thymic cysts are very uncommon lesions and are found anywhere from the angle of the mandible down to the sternum. Laryngoceles are classified into internal, external, and mixed types and have a frequent association with laryngeal carcinoma.

Sudden Onset, Rapidly Expansile, Cervical Cystic Hygroma in an Adult: A Rare Case with Unusual Presentation and Extensive Review of the Literature

“…Most common lesions of posterior triangle of neck are mostly solids and include inflammatory and metastatic adenopathies, lymphomas, lipomas, and neurofibromatosis [71, 72]. When evaluating cystic lesions of neck, the most common differentials are thyroglossal cysts, followed by brachial cleft cysts and lymphangiomas [73, 74]. …”

Cervical Thymic Cyst in an Adult

“…The cyst wall lining ranges from flattened squamous or cuboidal cells to multilayered stratified squamous epithelium and to even primitive respiratory epithelium. Lobulated lymphoid tissue in the cyst wall contains Hassall's corpuscles [17]. …”

Mucous Cysts as a Complication of Rhinoplasty

“…The content of these cysts is mostly hypointense in CT, and shows low to intermediate signal in T1-weighted and high signal in T2-weighted images in MR. (Koeller et al, 1999;Leong and Sharp, 2009;Ntomouchtsis et al, 2010) Unfortunately, these findings are not specific because they can be encountered also in foreign body inclusion cysts (Pausch et al, 2010), epidermoid cysts and sebaceous cysts. Raine et al described a case of a mucous cyst, which appeared as a well-defined hypointense soft tissue mass in CT with no bony elements, findings more consistent with a fibrous or granulomatous lesion.…”

“…Raine et al described a case of a mucous cyst, which appeared as a well-defined hypointense soft tissue mass in CT with no bony elements, findings more consistent with a fibrous or granulomatous lesion. (Raine et al, 2003) The differential diagnosis of mucous cysts from paraffinomas, dermoid cysts and lipomas is easier, because the latter are fat-containing hypointense lesions in CT, usually showing high signal in T1-and T2-weighted images in MR. (Koeller et al, 1999;Liu et al, 2003) Therefore, CT and MR imaging is helpful in the preoperative evaluation of a postrhinoplasty lesion, because it can demonstrate the benign nature and the cystic content of the mass, excluding other benign non-enhancing lesions (granuloma, sebaceous cyst, dermoid cyst, lipoma), solid enhancing lesions (traumatic aneurysm, hemangioma, neurofibroma, lymphoma, basal cell carcinoma, metastasis) or lesions that cover underlying calvarial masses (eosinophilic granuloma, meningioma, metastasis). Color Doppler ultrasonography can also be used in differential diagnostic problems of cystic lesions as an alternative of MRI.…”