Search

During routine anatomic dissection of the lower extremities of a 67-year-old male body, a supernumerary ishiocrural muscle was observed. This supernumerary muscle had similarities to a rare variant of the semimembranous muscle. On the left side it arose from the lateral dorsal side of the femur between the short head of the biceps femoris muscle and the origin of the adductor magnus muscle. It inserted on the medial condyle deep to the normal insertion of the semimembranous at the posterior aspect of the articular capsule. This muscle can be regarded either as a short deep semimembranous muscle (M. semimembranosus profondus) or as a short belly of a semitendinous biceps as known in birds. The muscle was situated closely to the vessels and nerves of the popliteal region. On the right side a similar but somewhat fainter muscle was observed whose origin emanated from the fascia of the adductor magnus muscle. The muscle probably has no major clinical importance but might be important to the surgeon who has to intervene in the popliteal region.

Few of the indirect methods for measuring body composition have ever been validated against direct human cadaver evidence. Computed tomography (CT), like NMR, has proved to be an important diagnostic tool and they appear to be the techniques of the future for body composition studies. The purpose of the present study (Cadaver Analysis Study III), undertaken at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in a joint venture with the University of Goteborg, Sweden, was to validate tomographic measurements of volumes and areas from different tissues using data from CT-scanning of unembalmed deep-frozen cadavers and data collected by dissection of the same cadavers. Six Belgian adults were extensively measured and dissected. The body was divided into several slices for comparison of the CT image with photography of the same slice and comparison of tissue-volumes per segment for the whole body. Due to post-mortem changes and the frozen state of the cadavers, the CT measurements were greatly affected by artefacts disturbing adipose tissue (AT) and muscle area determinations. Only the bone area measurements were similar between the two techniques. However, when the volumes (per segment) of the same tissues were considered, no apparent difference was found between CT and dissection data for the muscle volume.