The difficulties encountered with a cancer evolving from a thyroglossal cyst include the following. First, diagnosis is usually made during surgery or from the definitive pathologic samples.

Your daughter's cyst sounds like a thyroglossal duct cyst. This is a defect which is present from birth but does not show itself until later in childhood, most commonly in preschools aged children ...

Conclusions: The thyroglossal duct cyst must be studied in the adult population through fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) and a frozen section in cases in which FNAB is inconclusive or unavailable.