Anatomical Variation in the Branching Pattern of Musculocutaneous Nerve & Its Clinical Importance - A Case Report
Suresh R. Rao *
Department of Anatomy, Subbaiah Institue of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Shimoga, Karnataka, India
Gangadhara Swamy
Department of Anatomy, Subbaiah Institue of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Shimoga, Karnataka, India
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The anatomical knowledge of the musculocutaneous nerve and its variations play an important role for the surgeons, due to the fact that one of the complications in many upper-limb surgical procedures involve injury to this nerve. During our routine dissection, we observed an anatomical variation of the musculocutaneous nerve taking origin from the lateral cord of the brachial plexus and after passing through the coracobrachialis muscle it then gave a communicating branch to the median nerve in the left upper limb of a male cadaver. The union between the musculocutaneous nerve and the median nerve occurred approximately at the midpoint of the arm. We consider this variation to be rare.
Keywords: Musculocutaneous nerve, median nerve, variations