OBJECTIVE

We report an extremely rare case of distant metastasis to the rectus femoris muscle from a laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma.

METHOD

We present a case report and a review of the world literature concerning distant skeletal muscle metastasis from head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

RESULTS

The patient showed no evidence of distant muscular recurrence at follow up after 21 months; however, two years later he died from brain and suprarenal metastases.

CONCLUSION

This report describes the first case of haematogenous distant metastasis to the left rectus femoris muscle from a laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma, without evidence of cervical lymph node metastases. To the best of our knowledge, this is the second reported case of muscular distant metastasis without cervical lymph node involvement. Although the prognosis associated with skeletal muscle metastasis is considered to be poor, surgical excision may be indicated for an isolated muscular metastasis.