Recurrent head and neck cancer presenting as a large retroperitoneal mass

Worldwide, head and neck cancers account for more than half a million cases annually and nearly 400,000 deaths.1 Although the exact incidence of metastatic disease of these primarily squamous cell tumors is dicult to determine, the incidence is thought to be much lower than that of other solid tumors.2 When the dierent sites of metastatic disease of these tumors have been studied previously, the most common have been (in descending order of frequency) the lungs, bones, liver, skin, mediastinum, and bone marrow.2,3 It is extremely rare area for head and neck squamous cell cancers to metastasize to the retroperitoneum. To our knowledge, only 2 other such cases have been reported in the literature.4,5 In those two cases, the metastatic recurrence occurred at 6 and 13 months after de‡nitive treatment of the primary cancer.