Lithograph of fish anatomy
S Schillinger, Stuttgart 1784
Recently, Tennis legend Serena Williams underwent surgery to remove a grapefruit sized branchial cyst from her neck. American surgeons would use the term branchial cleft cyst, but I am not so I will not. I just love the embryology and anatomy of branchial cysts. It is a dance with the vestiges of our past. Branchial cysts are inherently benign. They are congenital epithelial cysts that arise in the lateral neck from failure of the second branchial cleft to fully obliterate in the early intrauterine weeks of human embryo development. Similar things can happen to the first and third clefts but are even rarer events. Branchial cysts are the temporary mammalian equivalent of gills in fish or primitive amphibians. They are a reminder that all of us were derived from a little fish who was brave enough to wiggle ashore and leave the primordial swamp behind. #onesmallstepforman #letsmakelemonade
Pen Paint and Scalpel 