Primary squamous cell carcinoma of the thyroid gland (SCCTh) is a very rare disease, occurring in less than 1% of all thyroid cancer patients. The treatment of primary SCCTh is not well established, and the disease usually has an aggressive clinical course. Therefore, primary SCCTh is associated with a very poor prognosis.
We report a case of mixed squamous cell carcinoma and papillary carcinoma of the thyroid gland. A 77-year-old man visited our hospital complaining of a swelling of the anterior cervix, and he underwent a total thyroidectomy under a suspicion of thyroid cancer. After surgery, the patient developed paralytic ileus of unknown cause. The patient’s overall condition deteriorated because of bone metastasis and pleural effusion, and he died 8 months after the surgery. A pathologic dissection revealed a thoracic spinal metastatic lesion that had invaded the vagus nerve and was considered to have caused the gastrointestinal movement disorder.
