A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis: A New Insight into The Variations of Origin Site of The Superior Thyroid Artery

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this review was to perform a search that noted where the superior thyroid artery (STA) originated.
Methods: The indexing databases PubMed and Google Scholar were used for the literature search and the articles that evaluated the origin site of the STA were included.
Results: Seventy-one studies were analyzed, yielding a total of 6837 samples. Our findings revealed that STA commonly originated from the external carotid artery (58.17%), followed by carotid bifurcation (23.50%), common carotid (15.83%), and internal carotid (0.04%), lingual (0.01%), occipital (0.01%) and ascending pharyngeal (0.01%) arteries. It arises as a shared trunk (arising from external, internal or common carotid or carotid bifurcation arteries) with other arteries including thyro-lingual (1.45%), thyro-linguo-facial (0.54%), thyro-occipital(0.01%), thyro-linguo-laryngeal (0.01%), and thyro-hyo-laryngo-cricothyro-sternocleidomastoid (0.01%) trunks or absent (0.38%).
Conclusion: We created a novel, simple classification based on our outcome. Attention to this anatomical variation is critical for surgeons and radiologists to achieve preferable anterior neck operations.