Background and aims: To report the incidence of occult papillary carcinoma of thyroid in a tertiary care center in India in post-laryngectomy specimen of carcinoma of hypopharynx.
Settings and design: Retrospective analysis.
Materials and methods: This is a retrospective analysis of incidentally detected papillary carcinoma of thyroid in 358 patients of carcinoma of hypopharynx treated with total/near total laryngectomy at our tertiary care institute from 2005 to 2011.
Statistical analysis used: Statistical analysis was performed using the software Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 20.0 (IBM, NY, USA). Percentages were calculated.
Results: Thyroid cancer was seen in 7/358 patients with incidence of 2%. Five patients had tumor localized to thyroid gland only. One patient had nodal metastasis with thyroid cancer and one had only metastatic cervical node with normal thyroid gland on final histopathology. Three of these patients (3/7) had a recurrence of carcinoma of hypopharynx within 1 year duration.
Conclusions: The incidence of occult papillary carcinoma of thyroid varies from 0.25% to 7% in the Indian literature.