Zuckerkandl's tubercle is a pyramidal extension of the thyroid gland, present at the most posterior side of each lobe.

Emil Zuckerkandl Emil Zuckerkandl (1 September 1849 in Győr, Hungary – 28 May 1910 in Vienna, Austria) was a Hungarian anatomist. Biography Zuckerkandl was born in Győr on 1 September 1849, to a Jewish family. He had two brothers: the industrialist V ...

described it in 1902 as the ''processus posterior glandulae thyreoideae''.Zuckerkandl, E. (1902). Die Epithelkörperchen von Didelphys azara nebst Bemerkungen über die Epithelkörperchen des Menschen. ''Anatomische Hefte, 19''(1), 59-84. Although the structure is named after Zuckerkandl, it was discovered first by Otto Madelung in 1867 as the ''posterior horn of the thyroid''. The structure is important in thyroid surgery as it is closely related to the

recurrent laryngeal nerve The recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) is a branch of the vagus nerve ( cranial nerve X) that supplies all the intrinsic muscles of the larynx, with the exception of the cricothyroid muscles. There are two recurrent laryngeal nerves, right and ...

, the

inferior thyroid artery The inferior thyroid artery is an artery in the neck. It arises from the thyrocervical trunk and passes upward, in front of the vertebral artery and longus colli muscle. It then turns medially behind the carotid sheath and its contents, and als ...

, Berry's ligament and the parathyroid glands. The structure is subject to an important amount of anatomic variation, and therefore a size classification is proposed by Pelizzo et al.

References

Glands Endocrine system Human head and neck Thyroid Anatomy named for one who described it {{Anatomy-stub