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Metastasis of a caecal neuroendocrine carcinoma to the thyroid gland

¹ Department of Internal Medicine, Section of Endocrinology, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena I-41012, Italy; papigiampaolo@hotmail.com
² Department of Forensic and Morphologic Sciences, Section of Pathology, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
³ Department of Internal Medicine, Section of Endocrinology, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
⁴ Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Keywords: metastasis; neuroendocrine neoplasm of caecum; thyroid

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Metastatic tumours to the thyroid have been reported to arise from several organs.^1,2 We describe a unique case of caecal neuroendocrine carcinoma (NEC) metastatic to the thyroid gland, mimicking a primary medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC).

A 56 year old woman was referred after complaining of dysphagia and hoarseness. Fifteen months before, she underwent surgery because of a well differentiated caecal NEC, low grade malignant, with metastases to the left ovary, the omentum, and the abdominal lymph nodes (World Health Organisation classification).³ The tumour was composed of spindle shaped cells, exhibiting scanty eosinophilic cytoplasm, salt and pepper nuclei, and inconspicuous nucleoli (fig 1). Neoplastic cells showed intense reactivity with antibodies against CAM 5.2, AE1/AE3, cytokeratin 7, cdx-2, chromogranin A, synaptophysin, serotonin, and neurone specific enolase; there was weak reactivity for calcitonin and carcinoembryonic antigen. In contrast, no immunoreactivity was detected for thyroid transcription factor 1 or vimentin.

View larger version (175K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Figure 1  Primary neuroendocrine carcinoma . . . [Full text of this article]