Abstract:

Musculocutaneous nerve, which arises from the lateral cord of the brachial plexus, undergoes a number of changes during its development. The goal of our study was to identify and classify the variations that occur during the formation of the musculocutaneous nerve. Our study was carried out on 102 upper extremities of 51 human fetuses (25 males, 26 females) aged between 17-40 weeks of gestation, without external pathology and anomalies. Brachial plexus was revealed by the anatomical dissection method, and the formation variations of the musculocutaneous nerve were determined and these variations were typed. Type 1 refers to the normal anatomical structure in typing, whereas types 2A and type 2B have respectively one and two connecting branches between the musculocutaneous nerve and median nerve. In type 3, the musculocutaneous and median nerve formed as a common root by the junction of the lateral root of median nerve and medial root of median nerve are separated after a certain distance. In our study, 91.1% (n=93) of the samples were type 1, 6.9% (n=7) type 2A, 1% (n=1) type 2B and 1% (n=1) of the samples was found as type 3. Knowing the variations during the formation of the musculocutaneous nerve and revealing the population prevalence are important in terms of congenital brachial plexus paralysis, gunshot injuries, lacerations, use of the nerve for neurotization, and prevention of postoperative complications.

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