Thyroid Ectopia Revealed in the Adulthood: About One Case

Abstract

Thyroid ectopia is defined as the presence of thyroid tissue outside its normal pre-tracheal location. It’s may be discovered at any age. It’s clinical impacts are highly variable, precocious or late, depending on whether the thyroid is functional or not. We describe from this case an ectopic thyroid revealed in the adulthood. It is about a 44 years old woman with a medical history of goiter under supervision in her sister also followed for a chronic nasolacrimal duct obstruction. She benefitted from orbital and sinus computer tomography that showed a tongue’s base lesion process of with a strong contrast. Tongue MRI objectified a tongue base process measuring 43x37 mm with heterogeneous enhancement after gadolinium injection with total thyroid atrophy. Thyroid scintigraphy 131 confirmed the diagnosis of an ectopic thyroid: There was a rounded hyperfixation, a retro-mandibular median projecting as sub-lingual, without visualing uptake tracer on the thyroid lodge level. Physical examination and hormonal exploration were without abnormalities. In front of the uncomplicated asymptomatic sub-lingual thyroid, regular supervision was recommended based on thyroid hormones dosage and a scintigraphy or MRI.