An Unusual Case of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma with Solitary Cerebral Metastases Mimicking Cavernous Hemangioma

Tong Zhao, Kezhu Chen, Xiaorong Yan, Honghai You and Changzhen Jiang

Department of Neurosurgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University, China
Fujian Provincial Clinical Medical Research Centre for Neurological Disorders, China
Institute of Neurosurgery Fuzhou, Fujian Medical University, China
Department of Neurosurgery, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, China
Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, China
These authors contributed equally to this work

^*Correspondance to: Tong Zhao 

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Abstract:

Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma (PTC) is the most common type of thyroid cancer and usually has a favorable prognosis as it has a low rate of recurrence and metastasis. The incidence of brain metastases in thyroid carcinoma is low while solitary brain metastases are even rare. In this case, we introduced a male patient 11 years after PTC resection. He was brought to the emergency department for sudden fainting and CT showed bilateral occipital lobe lesions with hemorrhage in the right lesion. It is worth noting that the left occipital lobe lesion was found by physical examination in 2017 and no enlargement was observed during subsequent examination (the last one was in June 2020). Meanwhile, the right occipital lobe lesion was not found until he fainted. We initially diagnosed the intracranial lesions as cavernous hemangioma based on imaging findings and clinical features  while postoperative pathological sections revealed PTC. This case reminds us that PTC may appear to be primary intracranial disease, especially cavernous hemangioma, and intracranial metastasis of PTC can be multisite and staged.

Keywords:

Papillary thyroid carcinoma; Cerebral metastasis; Cavernous hemangioma

Cite the Article:

Zhao T, Chen K, Yan X, You H, Jiang C. An Unusual Case of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma with Solitary Cerebral Metastases Mimicking Cavernous Hemangioma. Clin Oncol. 2022;7:1923..