THE VENOUS DRAINAGE SITES OF THE INFERIOR THYROID VEIN

Because of the importance concerning angiography and approach in neck surgery the venous drainage from the inferior border of the thyroid gl and, including its variants, had been reported in numerous times in su rgical and anatomic literature. Statistical information on the frequen cy of opening sites and number of the thyroid veins are rather poor an d differ with the variant authors tremendously, due to the small numbe r of patients or preparations investigated. To provide more accurate d ata are the objectives of this paper. Our issues derive from examinati ons on cadavers of the dissecting-courses in the years 1987 - 1992 (n = 168). Preparations showing signs of semiresection of the thyroid gla nd had been rejected for this study, obviously. In regard to the brach iocephalic veins three groups of venous drainage could be established: A) Exclusive drainage to the right or left brachiocaphalic vein or th eir junction, respectively; B) Combinations of the possibilities shown in A); C) Special cases with supernumerous drainage to other veins of the mediastinum. Besides detailed descriptions of the frequency of th e variants found, the discrepancies to the known literature are discus sed. Some of the variants described by us have not been mentioned at a ll.