Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 7, 2025
Spontaneous Murine Model of Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer
Published on: February 3, 2023
METASTATIC THYROID CANCER IN A MAN WITH TUMOR-FREE THYROID
Spenser S Souza1, Ehab S Alameer1, Emad Kandil1
1Tulane University School of Medicine, Department of Surgery, New Orleans, Louisiana.
Objective:
The objective of this report is to emphasize the importance of considering thyroid cancer in the differential diagnosis, when the origin of a metastatic boney lesion is indeterminate.
Methods:
Diagnostic studies performed included a thyroid function test, an ultrasound, and a computed tomography (CT) scan of the neck, biopsies of the bone, and thyroid lesions.
Results:
A 61-year-old man was found to have incidental sclerotic bone lesions in the lumbar region on CT scan performed in the setting of a prostate abscess induced sepsis. The bone biopsy suggested metastatic follicular thyroid carcinoma. Imaging studies of the neck showed markedly enlarged left greater than right thyroid nodules. A surgical specimen from the staged total thyroidectomy showed no evidence of thyroid malignancy, despite a thorough review of microscopic tissue sections at 5 μm. A whole body scan 2-months after radioactive iodine therapy demonstrated persistent uptake in the metastatic lesion at L4 and interval progression of widely metastatic disease.
Conclusion:
Metastatic thyroid cancer may be present without a histopathologic evidence of thyroid malignancy, albeit rarely. When the origin of a metastatic boney lesion is unclear, thyroid cancer should be included in the differential diagnosis.
