The right and left lobes of the thyroid gland are connected by an isthmus. The isthmus lies at the level of the second and third tracheal rings. Occasionaly, the isthmus may be absent. We hereby, report the absence of isthmus in a 52-year-old male cadaver of unknown origin. Both the right and left lobes were normal but they were separated. Both the right and left lobes of the thyroid gland measured 4.3 cm vertically. The separation distance between right and left glands was noted at the upper, middle and lower parts. The upper end of medial border of both lobes were separated by a distance of 1 cm while the separation distance was 0.7 cm and 1.5 cm at the middle and lower parts, respectively. The anatomical and clinical significance of absence of isthmus is important for medical personnel and the surgeons operating on the thyroid gland. The present case report is a an attempt to highlight such.
Cases of lingual thyroid are rare. The Johns Hopkins Hospital, New York, reported three cases of lingual thyroid in 800,000 admissions. We report here a case of lingual thyroid associated with hypothyroidism. The embryology, clinical features and principals of management are discussed.
Ectopic thyroid or thyroid ectopia is a rare developmental anomaly with the prevalence of 1 per 100,000-300,000 population. Even rarer, such an anomaly manifests as dual thyroid ectopia. To our best knowledge, only one case has been reported on dual thyroid ectopia with Graves' disease in the English literature. We present here a case of dual thyroid ectopia complicated by Graves' disease, whereby the diagnosis was rendered through judicious use of various diagnostic modalities coupled with a close clinical follow-up. In this case, therapeutic consideration should be personalized with proper informed consent of the patient.
An ectopic location of the thyroid gland usually occurs in the midline, starting anywhere from the tongue to the diaphragm. The occurrence of an ectopic thyroid gland in a non-midline site is extremely rare. We report a 32-year-old Malay woman with an aberrant thyroid gland presenting as a parapharyngeal lesion. She had a normally functioning thyroid gland. An ectopic thyroid should be considered as one of the differential diagnoses in the parapharyngeal mass.