Abstract
Palmaris longus is a dispensable muscle with a long tendon which is very useful in reconstructive surgery. It is absent 2.8 to 24% of the population depending on the race/ethnicity studied. Four hundred and fifty healthy subjects (equally distributed among Malaysia’s 3 major ethnic groups) were clinically examined for the presence or absence of palmaris longus. This tendon was found to be absent unilaterally in 6.4% of study subjects, and bilaterally in 2.9% of study participants. Malays have a high prevalence of palmaris longus absence at 11.3% followed closely by Indians at 10.7% whilst Chinese had a low absence rate of 6.0%.
Highlights
Palmaris longus muscle is located between flexor carpi radialis and flexor carpi ulnaris muscles
Palmaris longus was found to be absent unilaterally in 29 (6.4%), bilaterally in 13 (2.9%), with an overall absence in 42 subjects (9.3%) (Table II)
Malays had the highest percentage of palmaris longus absence (11.3%), followed by the Indians at 10.7% and the Chinese at 6.0% (Fig. 2)
Summary
Palmaris longus muscle is located between flexor carpi radialis and flexor carpi ulnaris muscles It is slender, fusiform in shape and arises from the common flexor origin around the medial epicondyle. Most standard textbooks of hand surgery quote the prevalence of absence of palmaris longus at around 15%3-5. Sebastin et al 9 recently studied 329 Chinese subjects in Singapore and found that palmaris longus is absent unilaterally in 3.3%, bilaterally in 1.2% with an overall absence of 4.6%. This revealed a much lower prevalence of absence in Chinese subjects as compared to Caucasians
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