Parapharyngeal ectopic thyroid: A clinical case report.

A 51-year-old woman presented with dysphagia, nocturnal dyspnoea, right-sided infra-auricular pain, and a feeling of an oropharyngeal lump of several months’ duration. A mass covered by pharyngeal mucosa was seen on examination of the pharynx, at the level of the right tonsil, which crossed the midline, and extended from the epipharynx to the right hypopharynx. No cervical lymph adenopathies were felt. A computed tomography (CT) scan was performed with contrast (Fig. 1A) which revealed the presence of a mass in the right parapharyngeal space which crossed the midline; the greatest longitudinal axis was 67 mm, transversal 67 mm, and anteroposterior 31 mm, there were scattered calcifications and it was very vascularised, and there were no suspicious lymph adenopathies. The core needle biopsy laboratory reported connective and lymphoreticular tissue, skeletal muscle, and no malignancy data. An angio-CT scan confirmed the presence of a hypervascular parapharyngeal mass, apparently dependent on the external carotid artery which was externally displacing the vessels of the carotid space (Fig. 1B). It was decided, given the hypervascularisation of the mass, to embolise and remove the tumour intraorally beforehand, with control of the cervical vascular bundle,