What causes a branchial cleft cyst?

What causes a branchial cleft cyst?

Branchial cleft cysts happen during gestation, as your body is building the foundation for your head and neck structure, including your larynx (voice box), your mandible (upper jaw) and your hyoid bone, which supports your tongue.

Here’s how that process works:

• Neural crest cells, which develop tissues, gather in the area of your head and neck to create what’s called your branchial apparatus.
• Your branchial apparatus becomes cartilage, bone, blood vessels and the muscles in your head and neck.
• Your branchial apparatus has ridges of tissue (arches) and in-foldings of tissue (clefts) that are responsible for developing certain parts of your head and neck. All told, there are six arches and five clefts.
• Branchial cleft cysts happen when branchial arches don’t fuse, or grow together. Think of these arches as hamburger patties on a plate. Your body needs to compress these patties to make one larger patty. When spaces are left between the patties, branchial anomalies, including branchial cleft cysts, fistula and sinuses, develop.