[Thyroid's metastasis of tonsillar squamous cell carcinoma]

The authors describe the case of a 58 years old man, affected by squamous cell carcinoma of the tonsil, who underwent left tonsillectomy with bilateral neck dissection, followed by radiotherapy. After a 6 months period, the patient began to suffer from dysphonia, dysphagia and loss of weight: a painless neoformation was detected at the right lobe of the tyhroid, resulted a metastasis of the tonsillar neoplasm. The search for intranodular thyroglobulin was negative; the patient underwent thyroidectomy which showed a massive infiltration of the right cricothyroid space, cricoid and thyroid wing cartilage necrosis and intralaryngeal tumor infiltration. The authors describe the thyroid metastasis treatment, present an up-to-date review of the literature and suggest a thyroid careful clinical evaluation in every patient with a previous history of oropharyngeal cancer.