Metastatic renal cell carcinoma presenting as a clear cell tumour in the head and neck region

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is the most frequent urological malignancy in adults and has a male preponderance. It accounts for approximately 3% of adult malignancies and 90–95% of neoplasms arising from the kidney. RCC usually metastasizes to lungs, bone and regional lymph nodes but very rarely to the head and neck region. The following report is based on a female patient with a previously undiagnosed RCC, which metastasized and presented as a clear cell tumour in the head and neck region. A histopathological differential diagnosis for clear cell tumours together with the contributing factors that led to the diagnosis of metastatic RCC will be discussed.