BACKGROUND: Histopathologic scrutiny of surgical pathology specimens can uncover unexpected but important pathologic processes that might not (yet) be clinically apparent. We suspect that cervical lymph nodes removed from @entity1 with known @entity5 of the head and neck might occasionally harbor clinically unsuspected @entity5 . METHODS: We reviewed the pathology reports of all @entity1 who had undergone cervical lymph node dissections at our institution between 1984 and 2001 to determine the prevalence of occult metastatic @entity259 and other clinically unsuspected @entity5 . The medical records were reviewed to obtain follow-up information when histologic examination disclosed some significant finding that was unsuspected on clinical grounds. RESULTS: Of the 1337 @entity1 who underwent cervical lymphadenectomy during the 17-year period, 27 (2.0%) had at least one lymph node harboring an unanticipated finding that raised the concern of a clinically unsuspected @entity5 . Sixteen (1.2%) of these @entity1 had conclusive histologic evidence of an unexpected @entity5 , including 6 @entity1 (0.4%) with @entity706 (low-grade B cell, n = 5; high-grade B cell, n = 1) and 10 @entity1 (0.7%) with metastatic @entity3557 . An additional 11 @entity1 (0.8%) had lymph nodes harboring "benign" thyroid inclusions or psammoma bodies. Four of these 11 @entity1 underwent thyroidectomy, but @entity259 was not detected in the ipsilateral thyroid. Only one @entity1 died as a consequence of the incidentally discovered @entity5 . CONCLUSIONS: To the degree that our study population is reflective of the adult population at large, at least 1% of adults harbor @entity5 in their cervical lymph nodes. Although this statistic seems alarmingly high, most of these @entity5 are indolent and do not undergo unrelenting progression to clinically overt @entity5 .

The prevalence and significance of clinically unsuspected XXXX in cervical lymph nodes.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['patients', 'patient'] @entity3557 :: ('MESH:C536915', 'Disease') :: ['papillary thyroid carcinomas'] @entity706 :: ('MESH:D008223', 'Disease') :: ['malignant lymphomas'] @entity5 :: ('MESH:D009369', 'Disease') :: ['cancers', 'malignant neoplasms', 'neoplasms', 'malignancies', 'neoplasm', 'tumors'] @entity259 :: ('MESH:D013964', 'Disease') :: ['thyroid cancer']
@entity5 :: (MESH:D009369,Disease) :: ['neoplasms']
