Metastasis to the tonsils from malignant melanoma is rare. This paper describes one such case in a woman with synchronous breast adenocarcinoma and cutaneous malignant melanoma who had a most unusual clinical course.

An otolaryngologist is conversant with the potential of middle-ear disease leading to lateral sinus thrombosis and subsequent jugular vein thrombosis, although this is becoming an increasingly rare event. Spontaneous jugular vein thrombosis from non-otological causes, however, is not well described in the otolaryngology literature. We present three cases of jugular vein thrombosis who presented primarily to the Otolaryngology department each attributable to a different pathology including discoid lupus erythematosus, antiphospholipid syndrome and metastatic malignancy. Awareness needs to be increased of this condition in the differential diagnosis of acute neck swelling and neck pain.

The case of a minor salivary gland tumour, arising from the tongue, with nodal metastasis is presented. Biopsy of the tumour and fine-needle aspiration cytology of the neck swelling showed the presence of a clear cell carcinoma with evidence of nodal metastases. A commando operation was performed and the defect was reconstructed using a local tongue flap. The literature review indicated that the neoplasm was rare and its site of occurrence rather unusual.

This prospective study compares the results of pre-operative clinical examination and simple ultrasound examination of the neck in 18 patients with proven head and neck primary tumours and palpable cervical lymphadenopathy, who then underwent 21 radical neck dissections. Neck palpation and ultrasound examination were compared with histological examination. Ultrasound did not add significantly to the information obtainable by simple neck palpation in this group of patients.