Axillary lymph node metastasis in papillary thyroid carcinoma: report of a case and review of the literature.

We report a case of axillary lymph node metastasis as a consequence of recurrent papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) in a 64-year-old lady. The patient initially presented in 2004 with a 10 × 10 cm size thyroid swelling of approximately 3-year duration and bilateral cervical lymphadenopathy. She underwent total thyroidectomy with bilateral neck dissection then. Pathological examination confirmed that the resected lesions were PTC and nodal metastases from thyroid. On follow-up over the next 6 years, she underwent excisions twice for cervical nodal recurrences. She presented to us in January 2010 with multiple right axillary adenopathy. Therapeutic right axillary dissection was done. Histopathologic examination revealed metastatic PTC with tall cell differentiation in 7 out of the 17 nodes. The patient is currently on thyroxine suppression therapy and remains disease free for the past 6 months. We review our experience and present a brief review of literature.