TUMORS OF LATERAL ABERRANT THYROID ORIGIN

Lateral aberrant thyroid tumors occur as the result of an anomaly in the development of the thyroid gland. Histologically these tumors are not composed of normal thyroid tissue but have a papillary structure indistinguishable from that of papillary tumors of the thyroid.In forty-five of the 136 reported cases of tumors arising in lateral aberrant thyroid tissue, as shown in the accompanying table, the growth has been classified as malignant. Yet only two of the forty-five patients have been reported to have died as a result of recurrence of the tumor following operation. In no case has either local or distant metastasis of the tumor been proved. The remarkable survival record of the patients cannot fail to raise the question of whether or not the tumors were true carcinomas.Many of the tumors in the collected series were described as showing extensive metastasis to the cervical lymph nodes. Similarly it