Massive retrosternal goitre presenting with hypertension.

Patients with superior mediastinal tumours usually present with symptoms due to compression of adjacent organs, unless they are hormone-secreting tumours. This case is described in order to draw attention to the very unusual occurrence of systemic hypertension due to outside compression of the aortic arch without concomitant obstruction of the venous return, and to emphasize the necessity of surgical removal of mediastinal tumours.