Verburg Frederik A, Gasser Martin, Beissert Matthias, Geissinger Eva, Luster Markus, Reiners Christoph
Department of Nuclear Medicine, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
Thyroid. 2009 Sep;19(9):1009-11. doi: 10.1089/thy.2009.0067.
Intratracheal goiter manifestations caused by ectopic thyroid tissue have occasionally been reported. We report a 42-year-old female who had undergone thyroid surgery twice, which had caused unilateral recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy.
The patient presented with progressive dyspnea. Magnetic resonance imaging showed a recurrent goiter growing through the tracheal wall. She was treated in a multidisciplinary approach; at first she underwent transtracheal laser surgical removal of the intratracheal mass followed by conventional completion thyroidectomy and radioiodine remnant ablation. Thorough histological analysis did not find any signs of malignancy. Currently the patient is disease- and complaint free. As far as we could ascertain, no patient with a recurrent benign goiter growing through the tracheal wall has been reported before.
Recurrent benign goiter with intratracheal growth is extremely rare and requires a multidisciplinary approach.
