Calcaneus metastasis: a rare presentation of poorly differentiated thyroid cancer

Abstract

Summary

A 60-year-old woman presented to our clinic with an acute onset 3 months history of right ankle pain. The patient had a history of poorly differentiated thyroid cancer, which was treated with total thyroidectomy, left lateral neck dissection levels II–V and central neck dissection levels VI–VII followed by postoperative I-131 radioactive iodine ( ¹³¹I) ablation therapy 3.7 GBq 6 months ago. The post- ¹³¹I WBS showed residual iodine-avid thyroid tissue with no other iodine-avid disease or metastasis. SPECT/CT of the neck and chest showed nonavid bilateral pulmonary nodules, discrete nodal masses in mediastinum and nonavid bone lesions. FDG-PET CT scan showed FDG-avid mediastinal lymph nodes (LN), innumerable non-FDG-avid subcentimetric pulmonary nodules and few FDG-avid lytic lesions in the skeleton. X-ray and MRI of the right ankle showed a well-marginated lytic lesion in the posterior body of calcaneus and 5 × 6 cm soft tissue mass lesion, respectively. The histopathology of the calcaneus mass confirmed a positive immunostaining for thyroid origin which includes thyroglobulin and TTF-1 with PAX-8. Endobronchial mediastinal and bronchial LN biopsy confirmed thyroid cancer metastasis. Gene mutation showed HRAS and GNA13 with a high tumor mutational burden. We describe a rare case of poorly differentiated thyroid cancer in a patient who presented with right ankle pain; we confirmed the cause to be a calcaneus metastasis from the thyroid cancer, with calcaneus being an extremely rare site for bone metastases. Gene mutations points toward treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Learning points

• Poorly differentiated thyroid carcinoma (PDTC) usually metastasizes to lung and bone but can rarely occur in the calcaneus.

• Patients with distant metastases have significantly worse long-term prognosis.

• Radiotherapy is effective in reducing the metastatic pains as well as reducing the size of the metastasis.

• PAX-8 staining can be used to differentiate thyroid carcinomas from lung adenocarcinomas.

• The importance of searching for gene mutations to decide the treatment of PDTC.