Em. Burton et al., CERVICAL THYMIC CYSTS - CT APPEARANCE OF 2 CASES INCLUDING A PERSISTENT THYMOPHARYNGEAL DUCT CYST, Pediatric radiology, 25(5), 1995, pp. 363-365
Citations number
14
Categorie Soggetti
Radiology,Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging",Pediatrics
The differential diagnosis of cervical cysts in children includes comm
on entities such as branchial cleft cysts, thyroglossal duct cysts, an
d cystic hygromas, Congenital thymic cysts are uncommon and often misd
iagnosed as either branchial cleft cysts or cystic hygromas, However,
they may have an appearance on CT that can be characteristic, The cour
se of the descent of embryologic thymic tissue in the neck to the medi
astinum indicates the potential site of deposition of an ectopic cervi
cal thymic cyst. In a child, a cystic lesion that has an intimate rela
tionship to the carotid sheath is likely to be a thymic cyst. Of the a
pproximately 100 cases of vestigial cervical thymus or thymic cysts th
at have been reported in children, only 5 cases of a persistent thymop
haryngeal duct cyst have been described [1-5], In two of these five, t
he persistent thymopharyngeal duct cyst was demonstrated by CT [1, 2].
We report one additional case of a cervical thymic cyst and one case
of a persistent thymopharyngeal duct cyst both depicted by CT.