The differential diagnosis of pediatric cervical lesions is commonly encountered in practice, unfortunately, the list is long.
Differential diagnosis
Inflammatory
Most lesions tend to be inflammatory 3:
- non-tuberculous mycobacterial lymphadenitis
- scrofula
- sialodochitis
- abscess
- infected branchial cleft cyst
- infected thyroglossal duct cyst
- inflammation of salivary glands (e.g. parotid/submandibular)
Other non-inflammatory
- fibromatosis colli
- cystic hygroma/lymphangioma
- thyroglossal duct cyst (TGDC)
- Branchial cleft anomalies: most commonly 2nd branchial cleft cyst
- cervical dermal sinus
- cervical vascular malformation
- arteriovenous
- venous
- capillary
- lymphatic
- ectopic thyroid tissue
- cervical thymus 3
Neoplastic
- cervical neuroblastoma
- cervical rhabdomyosarcoma
- cervical teratoma
- cervical lymphoma/leukemia
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