Fig 1.
The superior thyroid artery arising from the external carotid artery and EBSLN near the upper pole of the thyroid gland; CCA = Common carotid artery, ECA = External carotid artery, ICA = Internal carotid artery, IJV = Internal jugular vein, SLA = Superior laryngeal artery, EBSLN = External branch of the superior laryngeal nerve.
Fig 2.
The superior thyroid artery arising from the common carotid artery at the level of the lamina of thyroid cartilage; CCA = Common carotid artery, ECA = External carotid artery, ICA = Internal carotid artery, STA = Superior thyroid artery, EBSLN = External branch of the superior laryngeal nerve.
Fig 3.
The superior thyroid artery arising from common carotid artery bifurcation at the level of the lamina of thyroid cartilage; CCA = Common carotid artery, ECA = External carotid artery, ICA = Internal carotid artery, STA = Superior thyroid artery, STV = Superior thyroid vein, EBSLN = External branch of the superior laryngeal nerve.
Table 1.
The origin of superior thyroid artery among Ethiopian cadavers.
Table 2.
Branching pattern of superior thyroid artery from the carotid tree.
Fig 4.
STA arising from the lingual artery and EBSLN passing posterior to it after removal of posterior belly of digastric and hypoglossal nerve; CCA = Common carotid artery, ECA = External carotid artery, ICA = Internal carotid artery, STA = Superior thyroid artery, EBSLN = External branch of superior laryngeal nerve.
Table 3.
Relation of external branch of the superior laryngeal nerve to the superior thyroid artery according to Cernea’s classification.
Table 4.
Comparison of the origin of superior thyroid artery from different pieces of literature and the current study.