European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

ENTHESES OF THE LATISSIMUS DORSI TENDON AND PREVALENCE OF THE ARCH OF LANGER: A MORPHOMETRIC ANATOMICAL STUDY OF NIGERIAN CADAVERS

Michael Omonkheoa Oyakhire* and Loveday Eseoghene Oghenemavwe

ABSTRACT

Studies on quantitative morphometry of the Latissimus dorsi muscle and its tendon of insertion in black cadavers are few, and not much is available in the literature concerning its relationship with the arch of langer when this anatomical variant is present. The purpose of this study was to determine the insertion characteristic of the Latissimus dorsi muscle and document incidence of the arch of Langer in Nigeria. Mean width of the latissimus tendon was 2.70cm at its point of insertion, and mean length was 7.32cm. Levene’s test for equality of variance and independent sample t-test were done separately to determine significant difference between the width, and the length of right and left specimen position of the cadavers from the two universities. The result indicates that there was no significant difference between the width of the right specimen position [M=2.77, SD = 0.43] and the left specimen position [M = 2.63, SD = 0.58] across the two universities in Nigeria. t[26] = 0.914, p = .366, Hedges' g = 0.253039 [this indicates a small effect size implying that the magnitude of the difference is small]. We observed in all specimens, fascial connections between the latissimus and teres major and 2 insertional patterns of insertion with respect to the tendon of the teres major. No arch of langer was found in our series. Our results will be useful for specialist surgeons considering mastectomy, chest, rotatotor cuff and face reconstruction procedures.

Keywords: Latissimus dorsi tendon, arch of Langer, morphometry, insertion footprint.