Abstract
When injury occurs to nerves of the hand, division into areas of complete and partial loss of sensibility is of less interest than detailed knowledge of the anatomical ranges of variation. For several years it has ben observed that when a nerve is severed, the sensory disturbance affects cutaneous areas differing considerably in different people. Great individual variations in innervation of the thumb pulp by the radial nerve are common. In the thumb, the border zones of the radial nerve are of the utmost importance, especially after median nerve injury when planning reconstructive surgery. The border zones of the radial nerve are often different on the radial and ulnar sides of the thumb. The ulnar side, of course, is the most important side. Thirty patients were examined using the ninhydrin test for radial nerve overlap onto the volar aspect of the thumb into the area of what is usually thought of as median nerve sensation. In the patients examined there were considerable variations, with the radial nerve innervation on both the radial and ulnar borders of the thumb nail averaging ten millimetres in the majority of patients. This amount of “overlap” is an important consideration when planning reconstructive procedures on the thumb and for assessing satisfactory function of the hand.
Published Version
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