Lateral fistulae and cysts of the neck. Heredity and diagnosis.

A family with congenital fistulae from the second cleft or pouch over four generations is described. In order to obtain some idea of how often anomalies are found in relatives of patients with this type of malformation a material embracing 114 patients has been examined. The investigation demonstrates that patients with a complete lateral fistula of the neck from the second cleft or pouch showed a heredity of 35%, whilst patients with lateral neck cysts did not show any recognizable familial tendency. Views on differential diagnosis are presented, including the value of fine-needle biopsy, where in 92% of the cases a diagnosis of branchial cysts of the neck was obtained.