Recommended Practices for Macerating Human Thyroid Cartilage.

Visible abnormalities on the thyroid cartilage may be indicative of perimortem trauma including fractures or sharp force trauma. During autopsy, the thyroid cartilage must be freed of surrounding soft tissue before these abnormalities can be clearly observed. Several processing methods were first experimentally tested on pig ears to narrow down which might work best to process human thyroid cartilage.