Vol 63, No 4 (2004)
Original article
Published online: 2004-09-16
Anatomical relationship between the superficial brachial arteries and the brachial plexus in humans, and their morphological significance
Folia Morphol 2004;63(4):465-471.
Abstract
Since the significance of a superficial subscapular artery was reported by Yamada
[22], macroscopic anatomical studies of axillary artery morphogenesis have
been conducted by many authors. Notably, Japanese anatomists have reported
important and groundbreaking theories on the morphogenesis of normal and
aberrant axillary arteries. These include a description of the superficial brachial
artery (BS) and Adachi’s brachial plexus (AxC) by Chiba [6–7], the possible routes
of the axillary artery by Aizawa et al. [3] and the morphological significance of
the inferior pectoral artery (Pi) by Kodama et al. [16] and the deep axillary artery
by Honma et al. [10, 11].
We have also identified 11 BS among 322 sides of 161 adult human cadavers.
We traced the BS with the AxC in 1 case, the development of a superficial
subscapular artery in 3 cases, the development of a Pi in 3 cases, an unclear
situation in 3 cases and a lateral median superficial brachial artery (BSML) in
1 case. Moreover, we carried out a fibre analysis of the BSML in order to understand
the morphology more completely. Our findings are discussed herein.
We have therefore described our cases and compare them with references, presenting
gross anatomical data on their morphogenesis in an effort to unify experimental
embryological data.
Keywords: superficial brachial arterybrachial plexushumangross anatomy