Zuckerkandl's tubercle is a pyramidal extension of the

thyroid gland The thyroid, or thyroid gland, is an endocrine gland in vertebrates. In humans, it is a butterfly-shaped gland located in the neck below the Adam's apple. It consists of two connected lobes. The lower two thirds of the lobes are connected by ...

, present at the most posterior side of each lobe.

Emil Zuckerkandl Emil Zuckerkandl (1 September 1849 Győr, Hungary – 28 May 1910, Vienna, Austria-Hungary) was an Austrian-Hungarian anatomist who held the first chair for anatomy at the University of Vienna as of 1888. Biography Zuckerkandl was born in ...

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), also known as nervus recurrens, 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 recur ...

, 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 a ...

, Berry's ligament and the

parathyroid glands Parathyroid glands are small endocrine glands in the neck of humans and other tetrapods. Humans usually have four parathyroid glands, located on the back of the thyroid gland in variable locations. The parathyroid gland produces and secretes pa ...

. 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