A unilateral sternopharyngeal branch of the sternocleidomastoid muscle in an aged Caucasian male: a unique cadaveric report

Abstract

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Cleidocervical muscle: a mini literature survey of a human muscle variation

“…Incidental anatomical findings can be identified in clinical practice during physical examinations, diagnostic imaging or surgical procedures. However, most of the incidental findings regarding anatomical variations are rather reported in cadaver studies (28,29). In our literature review, the reported cases were represented in cadaver studies as well as radiological findings equally with 48% respectively (Figure 2A).…”

The sternocleidomastoid muscle variations: a mini literature review

“…One of the limitations in most of the case reports where that even reported as normal insertional attachments, the manuscripts did not provide images showing the complete course of the SCM with clear depiction of the muscular insertion [13, 14, 16-19, 21-27, 34-36, 38, 39]. Other insertional variations of SCM such as cleidocervical, cleidooccipital platysma or the recently described sternopharyngeal variation of SCM have been described, however, they are discussed controversially in the literature as a subtype of a SCM variation [29,32,41,42].…”

“…29 subjects (individuals) in 23 research studies were analyzed where parameters such as supernumerary proximal variation types (sternal vs. clavicular), insertional variation, unilaterality/ bilateralism of the variation, study type as well as reported gender of the subjects and the country of research were extracted. Other variations, however, controversial in their affiliation to SCM variations, such as cleidocervical [29], cleidooccipital platysma [30], cleidohyoideus accessories [31] or recently described sternopharyngeal [32] muscles were not included in this survey.…”