Anat Cell Biol.  2019 Mar;52(1):87-89. 10.5115/acb.2019.52.1.87.

Superficial course of the medial plantar nerve: case report

• Koo GB
• Lee JH
• Jang JH
• Song IH
• Kim JY

• KMID: 2442335
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.5115/acb.2019.52.1.87

Abstract

The medial and lateral plantar nerves are branched from the tibial nerve and move to the tip of the toes. A variation of medial plantar nerve was found on the left side of a 78-year-old Korean male cadaver. The tibial nerve was divided into the lateral and medial plantar nerves beneath the plantar flexor. The medial plantar nerve passed deep to plantar aponeurosis and superficial to the flexor digitorum brevis. It gave off a common plantar digital nerve and then divided into three proper plantar digital nerves near the metatarsal bases. In this article, we report a superficial course of the medial plantar nerve and describe its unique morphology and discuss the clinical significance of this variation.

Keyword

Tibial nerve; Medial plantar nerve; Abductor hallucis muscle; Flexor digitorum brevis; Variation

MeSH Terms

Aged
Cadaver
Humans
Male
Metatarsal Bones
Tibial Nerve*
Toes

Figure

• 

  Fig. 1 Photograph of variant course of the medial plantar nerve. (A) After cutting abductor hallucis muscle (AHM), the medial plantar nerve (arrows) continued superficial to flexor digitorum brevis (FDB). And its branches accompanied the branches of the medial plantar artery (arrowhead). (B) Superficial course of the branches of the medial plantar artery (arrows). FDL, flexor digitorum longus; FHL, flexor hallucis longus.

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