Prevalence and pattern of communication of median and musculocutaneous nerves within the black population: Nigeria - a case study

Abstract

Most of the studies done on the pattern of communication between the median and musculocutaneous nerves have been done on Caucasian population. As a result of the several variations attributable to ethnic and racial differences and also the absence of similar studies within the black population, this study was carried out on a Negroid   population of Nigerian origin. A total of 50 cadavers were used for this study. Median-musculocutaneous communication was noted for 6% of the population where 4.4% was for males and 20% was for females. Twenty percent variation was noted for the left arm and 6% for the right arm. These variations with their pattern of occurrence were compared with the various reported values for the Caucasian populations. No significant difference was noted between the Negroid and Caucasian populations. All the communications noted in this study was unilateral.