Krishna Hare, Tandon Rati, Jacob Tony George
Department of Anatomy, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jodhpur, India.
Department of Anatomy, Mahatma Gandhi University of Medical College and Hospital, Jaipur, India.
Anat Cell Biol. 2023 Jun 30;56(2):288-292. doi: 10.5115/acb.22.225. Epub 2023 Mar 10.
In the foot, the lumbricals flex the metatarsophalangeal joints and extend the interphalangeal joints. The lumbricals are known to be affected in neuropathies. It is not known whether they may degenerate in normal individuals. Here, we report our findings of isolated degenerated lumbricals in seemingly normal feet of two cadavers. We explored lumbricals in 20 male and 8 female cadavers that were 60-80 years of age at the time of death. As part of routine dissection, we exposed the tendons of the flexor digitorum longus and the lumbricals. From the degenerated lumbricals, we took some tissue for paraffin-embedding, sectioning, and staining by hematoxylin and eosin, and Masson's trichrome technique. Of the 224 lumbricals studied, we found four apparently degenerated lumbricals in two male cadavers. In the first, the 2nd and 4th lumbricals in the left foot and the 2nd in the right foot were degenerated. In the second, the right 4th lumbrical was degenerated. Microscopically, the degenerated tissue was made of bundles of collagen. The lumbricals may have degenerated due to compression of their nerve supply. We cannot comment on whether the functionality of the feet were affected by these isolated degeneration of the lumbricals.
在足部，蚓状肌使跖趾关节屈曲并使指间关节伸展。已知蚓状肌在神经病变中会受到影响。但尚不清楚它们在正常个体中是否会退化。在此，我们报告在两具尸体看似正常的足部中发现孤立性退化蚓状肌的情况。我们对20具男性和8具女性尸体的蚓状肌进行了研究，这些尸体死亡时年龄在60至80岁之间。作为常规解剖的一部分，我们暴露了趾长屈肌腱和蚓状肌。从退化的蚓状肌中，我们取了一些组织进行石蜡包埋、切片，并采用苏木精-伊红染色和马松三色染色技术。在研究的224条蚓状肌中，我们在两具男性尸体中发现了4条明显退化的蚓状肌。第一具尸体中，左脚的第2和第4蚓状肌以及右脚的第2蚓状肌退化。第二具尸体中，右脚的第4蚓状肌退化。显微镜下，退化组织由胶原束组成。蚓状肌可能由于其神经供应受压而退化。我们无法评论这些蚓状肌的孤立性退化是否影响了足部的功能。
