This site is intended for healthcare professionals

Go to /sign-in page

You can view 5 more pages before signing in

Recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

Authoring team

Recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy mainly presents with voice changes.

The causes of recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy varies according to the side that is affected. The variation with respect to cause is because of the very different anatomy of the two nerves.

The left recurrent laryngeal nerve has a long course which extends down into the chest and loops under the arch of the aorta to return to the larynx.

The right recurrent laryngeal nerve is shorter and loops around the subclavian artery.

Thus, the left nerve is more susceptible to disease than the right.


Related pages

Create an account to add page annotations

Annotations allow you to add information to this page that would be handy to have on hand during a consultation. E.g. a website or number. This information will always show when you visit this page.