A 4-month-old girl had a lump in the front of her neck that only existed when she was upset. When she cried, it rose into view. When she settled, it vanished.
Clinicians at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur pointed an ultrasound probe at her neck while she was crying and watched an organ push up out of her chest. The diagnosis was superior herniation of the thymus, a benign condition in which a normally positioned thymus gland slides upward into the base of the neck when pressure inside the chest rises.
