Rectal carcinoma metastatic to the thyroid gland

Abstract

Clinically evident metastases to the thyroid gland are rarely found antemortem. A case of a 59-year-old woman with a history of rectal carcinoma, who presented with low back pain and a mass in the right lobe of her thyroid gland, is presented. The tumour of the thyroid was found to be metastatic adenocarcinoma from her previous rectal cancer. Other synchronous metastases were noted in her lumbar spine and kidneys.The clinical finding of metastases to the thyroid gland is rare, particularly from a colorectal primary. One must consider, however, the possibility of a tumour of the thyroid gland representing a secondary malignancy in any patient with a prior history of cancer.

Rectal adenocarcinoma metastatic to the thyroid gland

“…From 1990 to 2003, 12 cases of thyroid cancer metastatic from the colon and rectum (including the present case) were reported in the literature [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] (Table 1). The average age of the patients was 63 years, and the present patient was the youngest.…”

“…There are only 11 reported cases of thyroid tumors that were clinically evident prior to death being caused by metastatic colorectal cancer. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] The prognosis of metastatic thyroid tumors from a primary colorectal cancer seems to be poor; however, long-term survival is sometimes seen. The in prognosis is different from that of primary kidney carcinomas metastasizing to the thyroid, which are considered to have a relatively good prognosis.…”

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

“…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.…”

Colonic carcinoma metastasis to the thyroid: a case of skip metastasis

“…1,2 This is not the first case of metastatic colonic carcinoma to metastasize to the thyroid, but is unique as it demonstrates colon to thyroid metastasis with no other site involvement (Table I). [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] The absence of disease at sites between the primary and secondary disease can lead to the misassumption that the two disease processes are isolated. The majority of previous cases of colon to thyroid metastasis involve other major organs; in a third of cases the primary disease had metastasized to the liver.…”