A Case of Ectopic Lateral Cervical Thymic Cyst Mimicking as a Second Branchial Cleft Cyst

ABSTRACT

Cervical thymic cysts are rare lesions of neck mass often misdiagnosed clinically as branchial cleft cyst and are mostly diagnosed, pathologically after surgery. The authors applied surgical resection to a 34-year-old man with right upper neck mass, which was misdiagnosed preoperatively as a second branchial cleft cyst. The pathological tissue examination result showed that the patient was diagnosed with a cervical thymic cyst. The thymic cyst of the lateral neck has not been reported from adult in Korean. Herein, we present the case with review of the related literature.