The venous perforators of the lower limb – A new terminology

Abstract

Latin anatomical terminology of venous perforators (communications between superficial and deep venous systems of the lower limb) was adopted as late as 2001 as an appendix to the official nomenclature following the clinicians’ request. Terminologia Anatomica, last version of the Latin anatomical nomenclature, published in 1998, unfortunately contains no terms concerning these veins. During the 14th World Congress of the International Union of Phlebology, a consensus document was laid to expand the nomenclature of the lower limb veins, above all 36 new terms for perforators of the lower limb, both in Latin and English languages. This consensus document will be incorporated in the next version of the Terminologia Anatomica. But there are more constant and well-described ones, especially in the foot, and this article reviews in particular the current knowledge on the anatomy of the venous perforators of the whole lower limb.

A plea for extension of the anatomical nomenclature: Vessels

“…Some anatomically and/clinically very important terms have been already mentioned in our previous articles, but we felt inevitable to remind readers of them [6,8,9,[11][12][13]15]. If we check the anatomical terminology in current journals, monographs and textbook, there are still many terms found to be obsolete, incorrect or even eponymic although the last revision of the anatomical nomenclature -Terminologia Anatomica (TA)has been issued more than 20 years ago and eponyms have been banned from the anatomical nomenclature already in the Parisiensia Nomina Anatomica (PNA) in 1955 [16,[72][73][74][75][76]].…”

“…We have also repetitively stressed the importance of anatomical nomenclature in enabling clear, unanimous and unambiguous communication among specialists. All revised or newly proposed terms to be potentially incorporated into the only official valid version of the anatomical nomenclature called Terminologia Anatomica (TA) are summarized in these articles [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15].…”

“…The major impact consists in the rule that eponyms should be replaced with systemic terminology, e.g. first Cockett's perforator with the vena perforans cruris tibialis posterior inferior*[15,70].…”

Exploring the uncharted: Missing anatomical names in the Terminologia Anatomica

“…The term "communicating veins" refers to those vessels which are venous tributaries connecting veins within the same system, that is, the superficial or the deep venous system (Caggiati et al, 2005;Kachlik et al, 2019;Strzelec et al, 2017).…”

“…These perforating veins originate from the superficial epifascial veins and run to the deep veins of the lower limb, connecting the superficial and deep venous systems. The term “communicating veins” refers to those vessels which are venous tributaries connecting veins within the same system, that is, the superficial or the deep venous system (Caggiati et al, 2005; Kachlik et al, 2019; Strzelec et al, 2017).…”