Unusual Presentation of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma as a Lateral Neck Cystic Mass: A Case Report

Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is the most frequent thyroid malignancy. Recently, the incidence has become widespread among both male and female individuals worldwide. In this article, we aim to report a 32-year-old Saudi female who presented with a painless lateral neck mass for more than seven months, and on excisional biopsy, was found to have features of PTC. Therefore, the patient underwent total thyroidectomy and central neck dissection with left lateral neck dissection with uneventful recovery, and final histopathology resulted in PTC with two out of thirteen central lymph nodes being positive for metastasis. PTC should always be included in the differential diagnosis when patients present with lateral neck cystic mass. Therefore, an excisional biopsy should be considered even if the fine-needle aspiration (FNA) result was benign.