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Vol.51 No.1 contents | Japanese/English |
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- Case Report -
A Case of Occult Thyroid Cancer Diagnosed as Metastasis to Mediastinal Lymph Nodes During Surgery for Primary Lung Cancer
Kazuhiko Kataoka1, Toshio Nishikawa1, Souichi Kitaguchi2, Toshiya Fujiwara1, Motoki Matsuura11Department of Thoracic Surgery, 2Department of Respiratory Medicine, Hiroshima City Hospital, Japan
Background. Thyroid cancer diagnosed by biopsy of a mediastinal lymph node is rare. Case. A pulmonary tumor of the right upper lobe was found in a 77-year-old man on a medical examination. Positron emission tomography with 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG-PET) revealed FDG uptake in the right lung tumor (standardized uptake value max 8.2) and 2 lymph nodes in the upper mediastinum. He underwent right upper lobectomy with lymph node dissection via a median sternotomy. Histological examination revealed that the lung lesion was small cell carcinoma combined with adenocarcinoma, and the lymph nodes of the upper mediastinum were metastases of the papillary thyroid cancer. Surgery on the thyroid gland was performed after adjuvant chemotherapy for lung cancer. An occult papillary thyroid cancer lesion 8 mm in maximum dimension was detected. Conclusion. We report a rare case of occult thyroid cancer diagnosed as metastasis to mediastinal lymph nodes at surgery for primary lung cancer. Mediastinal lymph adenopathy with lung cancer may be metastasis of occult thyroid cancer.
key words: Occult thyroid cancer, Lung cancer, Metastasis to mediastinal lymph node, PET
Received: September 8, 2010
Accepted: December 13, 2010
JJLC 51 (1): 23-27, 2011
