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Superior and middle thyroid arteries arising from the common carotid artery

  • Anatomic Variations
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Abstract

We report a rare case of a left middle thyroid artery in a 71-year-old male cadaver. The middle thyroid artery arose from the anterior surface of the left common carotid artery. This artery ran anteroinferiorly and then bifurcated as it entered the lower lateral part of the left thyroid lobe. Both the right and left superior thyroid arteries arose from the common carotid arteries below the carotid bifurcation. The presence of a middle thyroid artery may cause unexpected bleeding during thyroid or neck surgery, and this rare variation needs to be kept in mind during the surgery.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anatomy, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

    Hyung-Sun Won & In-Hyuk Chung

  2. Department of Anatomy, Catholic Institute for Applied Anatomy, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea

    Seung-Ho Han

  3. Department of Anatomy, Samsung Biomedical Research Institute, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Suwon, 440-746, Korea

    Hyung-Sun Won & Chang-Seok Oh

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  1. Hyung-Sun Won
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  2. Seung-Ho Han
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  3. Chang-Seok Oh
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  4. In-Hyuk Chung
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Correspondence to Chang-Seok Oh.

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Won, HS., Han, SH., Oh, CS. et al. Superior and middle thyroid arteries arising from the common carotid artery. Surg Radiol Anat 33, 645–647 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00276-011-0781-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00276-011-0781-2

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