1995 Volume 56 Issue 10 Pages 2053-2057
We report a case of papillary thyroid carcinoma which changed to anaplastic carcinoma with a lingual metastasis and local recurrence. An 86-year-old woman underwent an excisional biopsy for a tumor on the left side of the neck which was histologically diagnosed as papillary thyroid carcinoma at other hospital. She was followed, because the primary focus of the thyroid carcinoma could not be detected. Two years later, a local recurrence occurred in the same region of the neck, and the patient was referred to the hospital. Anaplastic transformation of the papillary thyroid carcinoma was revealed by re-excision of the recurrent tumor. Five months after the re-excision, recurrence occurred in the neck which grew by three times and a tumor was found in the tongue at the same time. Biopsy of the lingual tumor revealed metastasis from the anaplastic thyroid carcinoma. She died of respiratory failure due to pulmonary metastasis on 47th admission day. At antopsy, all thyroid tissue was replaced by anaplastic carcinoma. Therefore, the focus of the primary thyroid carcinoma was not detected.
Anaplastic transformation of papillary thyroid carcinoma is not uncommon and anaplastic car-cinoma has a variety of modes of metastasis. But, we conclude that metastasis of anaplastic carcinoma to the tougue is extremely rare.
