Finding a lump under the skin is worrisome under any circumstance, but suddenly seeing a bulge on the neck can be especially alarming.
Such was the case for tennis superstar Serena Williams last fall when she posted on social media her experience with a mysterious cyst that grew to the size of a small grapefruit just under her jaw. She shared a video clip of the scar left after surgery to remove the lump, which turned out to be a noncancerous branchial cleft cyst.
It also turned out that Williams, 43, was an outlier, as this type of neck mass is relatively uncommon in middle-age to older adults.
We asked Julie Goddard, MD, an associate professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, about the causes of branchial cleft cysts, who is prone to getting them, how they’re treated and whether they can become cancerous.