Abstract

Introduction: The muscle-cutaneous nerve (MCN) is a mixed nerve, which is mainly responsible for shoulder flexion, elbow flexion and supination of the hand. The anatomical variations in this nerve are relatively frequent, fact with clinical and surgical implications.

Material and method: A retrospective review of 20 patients operated on with the Oberlin technique was made.

Results: Two variants were found in the 20 cases studied (10% of the cases): anastomosis between MCN and median nerve, and absence of the MCN.

Discussion: MCN variants are frequently described by the different authors. This has an embryological and phylogenetic explanation: the lateral and medial cords form the flexor plane of the muscles of the upper limb.

Conclusion: We present 2 cases: an unusual one of median nerve-MCN, and another absence of it. We emphasize that the knowledge of these variants have clinical, surgical and neuro-physiological applications.