Identification of Metastatic Conjunctival Squamous Cell Carcinoma through Neck Palpation

Thamanna Nishath; Minh T Nguyen; Michael Wu; Desiree A Marshall; Andrew W Stacey

doi:10.1159/000524528

Identification of Metastatic Conjunctival Squamous Cell Carcinoma through Neck Palpation

Case Rep Ophthalmol. 2022 Jun 7;13(2):424-428. doi: 10.1159/000524528. eCollection 2022 May-Aug.

Authors

Thamanna Nishath¹, Minh T Nguyen¹, Michael Wu², Desiree A Marshall³, Andrew W Stacey¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Ophthalmology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
² Department of Ophthalmology, Kaiser Permanente, Seattle, Washington, USA.
³ Department of Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

Abstract

An 80-year-old male with a distant 10 pack-years smoking history and squamous cell carcinoma (SCCA) of the scalp diagnosed 15 years ago presented with a new right nasal bulbar conjunctival lesion found to be invasive SCCA. The patient was started on interferon alfa-2b for 5 months until there was no evidence of residual disease. During a follow-up visit 10 months after diagnosis and during routine ophthalmic follow-up, an enlarged right submandibular lymph node was found through neck palpation and revealed to be SCCA without extranodal extension. The lesion was likely to have metastasized from his right conjunctival squamous cell carcinoma (CSCCA). Regional lymph nodes are a commonplace of metastasis for CSCCA making neck palpation a reasonable and recommended part of clinical examination to monitor for metastasis. This is the first known case of identifying regional metastasis of CSCCA through neck palpation.

Keywords: Conjunctival squamous cell carcinoma; Neck palpation; Nodal metastasis.

Publication types

Case Reports