Arterial anatomy of the thumb.

The anatomical literature has indicated that the arterial supply to the thumb comes from the princeps pollicis artery. However, this simplified description does not often correlate with intraoperative findings. The purpose of this study was to investigate and clarify this important area of anatomy by dissection of fresh cadaver hands. 40 dissections were completed on 35 intravascularly injected and five non-injected hands. Five patterns were identified. The most common pattern showed both a superficial and deep vessel to the first web space in 54% of specimens. Dominant vessels included the superficial palmar branch of the radial artery in 8%, first palmar metacarpal artery in 18% and dorsal metacarpal artery in 8%. Only three specimens correlated with the textbook description. We conclude that the term "princeps pollicis" is actually a misnomer.