A case of cervical esophageal duplication cyst in a newborn infant

Esophageal duplication cyst is a rare congenital anomaly resulting from a foregut budding error during the fourth to sixth week of embryonic development. Cervical esophageal duplication cysts are very rare and may cause respiratory distress in infancy. A full-term newborn girl who was born by normal delivery was transferred to our hospital because of swelling of the right anterior neck since birth. Cervical ultrasonography showed a 40 × 24 × 33 mm simple cyst on the right neck. Tracheal intubation was required at 2 weeks of age because of worsening external compression of the trachea. Fine-needle aspiration cytology revealed the existence of ciliated epithelium. At 1 month of age, exploration was performed through a transverse neck incision. The cyst had a layer of muscle connected to the lateral wall of the esophagus. Histopathological diagnosis was a cervical esophageal duplication cyst. We describe the clinical features of infantile cervical esophageal duplication cysts based on our experience of this rare disease in a neonate, along with a review of 19 cases previously reported in literature.