Surgical Challenges in Papillary Thyroid Cancer Patient With Kartagener's Syndrome: A Case Report

Kartagener's syndrome is a rare disorder defined by situs inversus, chronic sinusitis, and bronchiectasis, with mirror-image anatomy that may alter recurrent laryngeal nerve course and vascular structures. No previous reports have described thyroid cancer surgery details in this population. We present a female patient with Kartagener's syndrome who underwent right thyroidectomy and lymph node dissection for papillary thyroid carcinoma. Histopathology confirmed nodal metastasis, and intraoperative findings revealed a normal recurrent laryngeal nerve but a variant transverse cervical artery. This is the first report of thyroidectomy and lymph node dissection in a patient with Kartagener's syndrome, emphasizing the need for awareness of non-recurrent laryngeal nerve and cervical artery variations during such procedures.