Unusual variation of the hyoid bone: Bilateral absence of lesser cornua and abnormal bone attachment to the corpus

Date

2012-08

Authors

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Springer France

Abstract

The hyoid bone is a horseshoe-shaped and a solitary bone located at the neck just above the thyroid cartilage. It consists of a body, two greater cornua and two lesser cornua. In this report, we demonstrated an extra bone variation which is attached to the hyoid bone and located at the left side of its corpus. In addition to this abnormal bone attachment to the corpus, lesser cornua were absent bilaterally. Abnormal bone attachment was approximately 3.79-cm long and 0.38-0.50-cm wide and heads toward the upper left of the hyoid bone. We believe that clinicians should be aware of such abnormalities of the hyoid bone because of the functional and clinical importance of its variations and abnormal relations within nearby structures. These abnormalities have a great importance for the surgical operations and radiological studies of the neck region and for the forensic medicine because of the susceptibility of the hyoid bone to the fractures in relation to the strangulation cases.

Description

Bu çalışma, 19-22 Mayıs 2011 tarihleri arasında Bursa[Türkiye]’da düzenlenen Joint Meeting of Anatomical-Societies’da bildiri olarak sunulmuştur.

Keywords

Anatomy & morphology, Radiology, nuclear medicine & medical imaging, Surgery, Hyoid bone, Variation, Lesser cornu, Abnormal bone attachment, Age, Fracture

Citation

Gök, E. vd. (2012). "Unusual variation of the hyoid bone: Bilateral absence of lesser cornua and abnormal bone attachment to the corpus". Surgical and Radiologic Anatomy, 34(6), 567-569.