Case Report: Contribution of the Radial and Ulnar Arteries on the Blood Supply of the Thumb (LB22)

Abstract

Understanding the vascular patterns of the hand and its variations is important for surgeons, radiologists and anatomists due to the constant innovations on microsurgical techniques for the traumatized hand. Even though the thumb contributes 40 percent of the overall function of the hand, its irrigation is sometimes neglected. The principal irrigation of the thumb is normally provided by the princeps pollicis artery. It has been described that this artery usually arises from the radial artery or in other occasions can arise directly from the deep palmar arch, or from a common trunk with the radilis indicis artery. However, anatomical variations to this description have been found in previous studies. In order to determine the origin of the princeps pollicis artery, 12 hands were dissected out of 6 adults formalin preserved cadavers from the Gross Anatomy Laboratory of the Universidad Central del Caribe during the fall semester of 2012‐2013. In the present study we have found 58.3% of the specimens with the princeps pollicis artery arising from the first dorsal metacarpal artery. In 85.7% of these cases there is a persistent anastomosis between the princeps pollicis and the superficial palmar arch. Additionally, the irrigation of the thumb was found as normally described in 25% of the specimens. The remaining 16.6% of the specimens were discarded. These results allow us to suggest further investigation in this topic to provide significant statistics in terms of the incidence of this anatomical variation in the population.Grant Funding Source: Supported by: This publication was possible by grants from the National Center for Research Resources (5 G12 RR 003035‐27) and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (8G12 MD 007583‐27) from the National Institutes of Health