So you’ve got a lump in your neck

This is a really common condition. You probably remember having sore throats and infections as a child and being told that ‘your glands are up’. We all have about 100 lymph glands in the neck that are usually the size of a pea and increase and decrease in size if and when we have infections. Any lumps in the neck that come up and stay up, however, and any lumps that are bigger than 1cm in size definitely need looking at. I run a neck lump clinic at Wythenshawe Hospital on Wednesday mornings with my x-ray doctor colleagues and we do a one-stop clinic where we can see you, have a look in your mouth and nose and also put a small (4mm) camera in the nose to have a look at the back of the throat and voice box (bit of an odd feeling but doesn’t really hurt). We can get an ultrasound scan on the same day and if this does not look normal we can do a needle test to get an idea as to what the lump is.


I am really glad to reassure the majority of patients that we see that their neck lumps are benign and nothing to worry about but some people do have lumps that need further treatment. I commonly see thyroid lumps that can be benign and left alone as well as thyroid cancers that do need surgery to remove. We sometimes see lumps that arise from the saliva glands and again most of these can be left alone. We also see some lumps that are cancers that have spread from other parts of the head and neck and need further treatment, sometimes with more extensive surgery or radiotherapy.


Further posts to follow about these conditions in detail but the most important take home is that if you notice a lump in your neck get your GP to refer you to ENT on the two week wait pathway where you will be seen urgently