Tongue Metastasis From Renal Cell Carcinoma: A Rare Case Presentation

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is characterized by a marked metastatic potential and is the third most common cancer of metastasis to the head and neck, following breast and lung cancer. We report a rare case of a patient with RCC with metastasis to the tongue. A 72-year-old man visited our otorhinolaryngology clinic complaining of tongue pain and ulcerative lesions which occurred 3 weeks before. The patient had been diagnosed with RCC and received a right radical nephrectomy 3 years previously. Because the lesion was suspected to be malignant, a hemiglossectomy was planned. However, metastatic lesions were suspected on the left upper lung and the left 10th ribs in imaging studies and the result of an incisional biopsy revealed tongue metastasis of RCC. RCC metastasis to the tongue is extremely rare. Only 51 cases were reported worldwide from 1911 to 2017. According to the literature, no case of RCC metastasis to the tongue has been reported to date in Korea. Therefore, we report this case along with a review of the literature.