A 32-year-old male with a painless lymph node in the cervical region. Lymph node biopsy showed normal thyroid gland features. The thyroid is normal on palpation clinically. The diagnosis is
Thyroid tissue present in cervical lymph nodes in the face of a clinically normal thyroid gland is a metastasis from an occult primary thyroid carcinoma
Occasionally, a metastatic papillary thyroid cancer manifests as a painless lateral neck mass that is clinically detected before detecting the primary thyroid lesion.
Comment: Normal thyroid tissue is a trap by the examiner, remember in young people papillary thyroid cancer mostly is well differentiated.
Well, differentiated cells look like normal cells and tend to grow .and spread more slowly than poorly differentiated cells (anaplastic carcinoma).
Lateral aberrant thyroid
Follicular carcinoma thyroid with metastatic lymph nodes
Papillary carcinoma thyroid
Anaplastic carcinoma