Branchial pouch/cleft anomalies
Branchial pouch/cleft anomalies
Updated: 10/13/2020
© Jun Wang, MD, PhD
General features
- Congenital lesions
- Usually 20-40 years old
- Cysts most common
- May be bilateral
Clinical presentations
- May be cyst, sinus, fistula or cartilage in anterolateral neck
Key pathogenesis
- Incomplete obliteration of the branchial apparatus
Key morphological features
- Cysts derived from branchial cleft have squamous epithelium
- Cysts derived from branchial pouch have respiratory epithelium, with or without squamous metaplasia
Branchial cyst
- Congenital epithelial cysts
- Lateral neck
- Failure of obliteration of the second branchial cleft
- Solitary, painless mass in the neck of a child or a young adult
- Intermittent swelling and tenderness during upper respiratory tract infection
- Fistula after inflammation
- Cyst with stratified squamous or ciliated columnar epithelium and nonspecific inflammation
- Treatment: Surgery, antibiotics if infected
Thyroglossal duct cyst
- Most common congenital neck mass
- Mean age 30-40
- Anterior midline neck developmental anomaly due to persistence and cystic dilation of thyroglossal duct
- Usually asymptomatic
- May have heterotopic thyroid tissue
- May appear as blind tubular structure in mid neck or as sinus tract connected to foramen cecum or suprasternal notch skin
- Cyst with stratified squamous or ciliated columnar epithelium
- Treatment: Surgery
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