primary papillary carcinoma in thyroglossal duct cyst

thyroglossal duct cysts are the most common congenital anomalies in thyroid development, which in less than 1% of cases are malignant. in most cases the diagnosis is made postoperatively. up to now, a few cases have been reported which had been papillary carcinoma. controversies exist concerning its nature and treatment. we present a 30 years old woman with papillary carcinoma of thyroglossal duct cyst, identified in pathologic study after sistrunk procedure. in our case there was neither invasion to adjacent tissue nor lymph node involvement. no further procedure was performed. after 2 years of followup, the patient was asymptomatic and there was no evidence of recurrence. based on otolaryngologic refrences, we recommend sistrunk procedure and long term follow up for management of thyroglossal duct cyst with papillary carcinomas without marginal invasion and node metastasis.