Burton E M, Mercado-Deane M G, Howell C G, Hatley R, Pfeifer E A, Pantazis C G, Chung C, Lorenzo R L
Department of Radiology, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta 30912-3900, USA.
Pediatr Radiol. 1995;25(5):363-5. doi: 10.1007/BF02021704.
The differential diagnosis of cervical cysts in children includes common entities such as branchial cleft cysts, thyroglossal duct cysts, and cystic hygromas. Congenital thymic cysts are uncommon and often misdiagnosed as either branchial cleft cysts or cystic hygromas. However, they may have an appearance on CT that can be characteristic. The course of the descent of embryologic thymic tissue in the neck to the mediastinum indicates the potential site of deposition of an ectopic cervical thymic cyst. In a child, a cystic lesion that has an intimate relationship to the carotid sheath is likely to be a thymic cyst. Of the approximately 100 cases of vestigial cervical thymus or thymic cysts that have been reported in children, only 5 cases of a persistent thymopharyngeal duct cyst have been described [1-5]. In two of these five, the persistent thymopharyngeal duct cyst was demonstrated by CT [1,2]. We report one additional case of a cervical thymic cyst and one case of a persistent thymopharyngeal duct cyst both depicted by CT.
儿童颈部囊肿的鉴别诊断包括一些常见疾病，如鳃裂囊肿、甲状舌管囊肿和囊状水瘤。先天性胸腺囊肿并不常见，常被误诊为鳃裂囊肿或囊状水瘤。然而，它们在CT上可能有特征性表现。胚胎期胸腺组织在颈部向纵隔下降的过程提示了异位颈部胸腺囊肿可能的沉积部位。在儿童中，与颈动脉鞘关系密切的囊性病变很可能是胸腺囊肿。在已报道的约100例儿童残留颈部胸腺或胸腺囊肿病例中，仅描述了5例持续性胸腺咽管囊肿[1-5]。在这5例中的2例中，CT显示了持续性胸腺咽管囊肿[1,2]。我们报告另外1例颈部胸腺囊肿和1例持续性胸腺咽管囊肿，均由CT显示。
