Primary surgical resection remains the mainstay of management in locally advanced differentiated thyroid cancer. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors have recently shown promising results in patients with recurrent locally advanced differentiated thyroid cancer. This study discussed four patients with locally advanced differentiated thyroid cancer managed with tyrosine kinase inhibitors used prior to surgery in the ‘neoadjuvant’ setting.

Prospective data collection through a local thyroid database from February 2016 identified four patients with locally advanced differentiated thyroid cancer unsuitable for primary surgical resection commenced on neoadjuvant tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy.

All cases had T4a disease at presentation. Three cases tolerated tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy for more than 14 months while the last case failed to tolerate treatment at 1 month. All patients subsequently underwent total thyroidectomy to facilitate adjuvant radioactive iodine treatment. Disease-specific survival remains at 100 per cent currently (range, 29–75 months).

Neoadjuvant tyrosine kinase inhibitors in locally advanced differentiated thyroid cancer can be effective in reducing primary tumour extent to potentially facilitate a more limited surgical resection for local disease control.

We report a case of a patient with symptomatic primary hyperparathyroidism who was found, through a thorough radiological investigation, to also have papillary and medullary thyroid carcinomas.

A 59-year-old female was diagnosed with primary hyperparathyroidism. A further radiological investigation found suspicious areas within both thyroid lobes that were later diagnosed as foci of papillary and medullary thyroid carcinomas. Appropriate treatment was commenced. Reports of similar occurrences of synchronous thyroid and parathyroid pathologies are discussed.

To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of two synchronous thyroid cancers occurring in the context of primary hyperparathyroidism. We strongly recommend a thorough radiological investigation of all patients with primary hyperparathyroidism to prevent missing concurrent thyroid cancers.

We describe a case of endolymphatic sac tumour confined to the middle ear, which radiologically mimicked a glomus tympanicum, in a 58-year-old woman with tinnitus.

A 58-year-old woman presented with a one-year history of right-sided tinnitus. The clinical, radiological and surgical features were felt to be in keeping with a glomus tympanicum. However, the histopathological picture was that of a low grade papillary carcinoma of the endolymphatic sac, i.e. an endolymphatic sac tumour.

Endolymphatic sac tumours are classically locally aggressive and centred around the petrous temporal bone. Further growth results in complete replacement of the mastoid and petrous pyramid by tumour. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no previous reports of an endolymphatic sac tumour located solely within the hypo- and epitympanum of the middle ear.