Recurrence of thyroid carcinoma in cervical soft tissue following surgical implantation: Case report

•Recurrent thyroid cancer in cervical soft tissue following conventional thyroid surgery with functional neck dissection are extremely rare. However, some authors suggest that those subcutaneous lesions may result by surgical implantation of thyroid neoplasms.•Multiple possible factors associated with recurrence can be speculated such as proliferation and attachment of carcinoma cells transported in the bloodstream to soft tissue, surgical skills and instrument contamination during specimen manipulation.•A comprehensive long-term postoperative evaluation should be completed to minimize the risk cervical soft tissue recurrence. Thyroid cancer is the most common type of malignant endocrine cancer. Differentiated thyroid cancer, which includes papillary and follicular cancers, represents majority (90%) of all thyroid cancers and has a favorable prognosis. However, a minority of patients develops loco-regional recurrence. We report here a rare case of a 63 years-old man who underwent total thyroidectomy in 2015 for multinodular goiter whose histopathological examination revealed a papillary thyroid carcinoma. He received 6 weeks later a 100 mCi of radioactive iodine therapy. In 2017, he was admitted for multiple cervical lymph nodes with high serum thyroglobulin level (234 ng/mL) which required a bilateral central and lateral neck dissection. He was readmitted in 2019 for multiple subcutaneous neck nodules with high serum thyroglobulin level (197 ng/mL). The histopathological examination of the excised nodules revealed a papillary thyroid carcinoma. The patient showed no sign of recurrence after 2 years follow-up. Local soft tissue recurrence followed surgical implantation should be suspected when nodules are determined alongside the thyroid after previous thyroid surgery. Therapy for these soft tissue implants may be difficult; a comprehensive long-term postoperative evaluation should be completed to minimize the risk of recurrence in cervical soft tissue.