Unmasking Hidden Mediastinal Involvement in Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma: A Case Report on the Diagnostic Utilization...

The global incidence of thyroid cancer is on the rise, with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) accounting for approximately 80% of all cases. The incidence of mediastinal lymph node metastases in papillary thyroid cancer ranges from 0.7% to 27%. This case report details the diagnosis of a young man with papillary thyroid cancer, where the diagnosis was confirmed using endobronchial ultrasound-transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) of the mediastinal lymph nodes. EBUS-TBNA, recognized for its minimal invasiveness and high diagnostic yield, facilitated the precise evaluation and staging of mediastinal involvement. This method played a key role in identifying metastatic involvement in a case where traditional imaging and diagnostic approaches may have been insufficient. The case underscores the utility of EBUS-TBNA in managing thyroid cancer metastases, particularly in assessing rare sites of metastatic spread, and highlights the importance of this technique in the comprehensive diagnostic evaluation of thyroid cancer patients with suspected mediastinal lymph node involvement.