Thyroglossal duct cyst carcinoma

Thyroglossal duct cyst papillary thyroid cancer – the state of the art

“…The Sistrunk surgery, introduced for the first time in 1920, is recommended as a first-line treatment, it being the gold standard management [4,11,13]. In this procedure, the cyst with the middle part of the hyoid bone, as well as the surrounding tissue around the thyroglossal duct (a portion of duct between the hyoid bone and the foramen cecum) are en bloc resected [2,3,6].…”

“…Although some researchers have posted that total thyroidectomy should be performed in all patients, other practitioners have suggested that total thyroidectomy is associated with a risk of complications (injury to the recurrent laryngeal nerve or parathyroid glands) and should be implicated in a particular group of cases alone [3,5,11]. This alternative approach is performing thyroidectomy only among older subjects (≥ 45 years of age), in those with more aggressive disease or who are subjects with a history of radiation exposure to the head and neck area [11,14,15]. There are some high risk factors that must be considered when applying aggressive treatment.…”

“…Some researchers have found that the rationale for adding thyroid resection to every patient with TDCC should be based on three main considerations, the presence of concomitant thyroid malignancy in the main thyroid gland, the utilization of radioactive iodine as an adjuvant treatment, and the role of serum thyroglobulin as a follow-up marker for thyroid cancer [4]. In some cases, FNAB might reveal the malignant nature of the cyst and indicate more aggressive surgical approach [11].…”

“…within the TDC, it is difficult to calculate the frequency of TDCC in the general population [10][11][12]. Despite TDCs being very common in children and adolescents, carcinomas of the TDCs are rare in this group, and just over 30 cases have been diagnosed [7,13].…”

“…Ectopic thyroid tissue may be localized in the thyroglossal duct remnants (in over 50-65% of all cysts), and in 1% of all patients, this is the only functioning thyroid tissue in the body [2,3,[6][7][8][9]. Most TDCs are benign tumors, however, 0.7-1.5% develop into carcinoma [10,11]. Since the first described case of TDCC in 1911, by Brentano, approximately 300 cases of such cancers have been reported so far.…”