Benign thyroid inclusions within cervical lymph nodes: an alarming incidental finding

Small clusters of microscopically normal thyroid follicles within cervical lymph nodes are very occasionally encountered during histological examination. We support the view that provided the thyroid gland is not palpable and a technetium thyroid scan is normal, these should be regarded as benign thyroid inclusions and do not represent small metastatic lesions from thyroid carcinoma. We report an example of these inclusions in a cervical lymph node which was removed incidentally during the excision of a branchial cyst in a 25-year-old woman. The inclusion was too small to be noticed macroscopically and consisted of a small aggregation of histologically normal thyroid follicles situated in the subcapsular region of the lymph node.