A cluster of dysmorphologies in a male human body: The value of anatomical variants in health sciences student training

Abstract

The human body is known to contain many variations in its normal structure which, while of interest to teachers of anatomy, may be vexing to health sciences students when compared to the description of “normal” anatomy in their textbooks. However, these variations, and even dysmorphologies, pose interesting and sometimes challenging learning experiences to students during dissection of the body. Such an instance occurred for undergraduate medical students in the School of Anatomical Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, when three unrelated dysmorphologies were discovered while undertaking a full dissection of a donor’s body. An aberrant right subclavian artery was found in the thoracic cavity and two further dysmorphologies, a supernumerary kidney and accessory indentations on the diaphragmatic surface of the liver presented on dissection of the abdominal cavity. The aberrant right subclavian conformed with previous descriptions of the anomaly. However, the supernumerary kidney lacked a ureter, was lobulated and contained large blood-filled spaces, with histological evidence of urinary tubules in the intervening connective tissue. The accessory hepatic indentations varied in depth, with the deeper one forming a fissure and the less deep indentation, a sulcus. While the described dysmorphologies vary in their incidence, the occurrence of a cluster of three within one body provided a significant opportunity for the students to review the normal anatomy, and especially the complex development of the structures, as well as the clinical significance of each.