A case of potentially lethal vascular variation in association with palmaris profundus muscle.

Arterial variations in upper limbs are often reported commonly. Superficial arterial variations accounting for 4.2% of all arterial variations are hazardous during any invasive procedures of the upper limb, from routine intravenous injections to surgeries. Arterial variations are usually associated with inverted or absent palmaris longus. Palmaris profundus, a rare anomalous variation of palmaris longus has been reported in carpal tunnel syndrome as its tendon was associated with median nerve in the carpal tunnel. The authors reported a unique variation in the upper limb arterial pattern-the presence of bilateral superficial brachioulnar artery associated with unilateral palmaris profundus muscle and an abnormal radicle of musculocutaneous nerve to the median nerve in the left side.

A large thymic mass with persistent active tissue in an elderly cadaver.

Thymus is an encapsulated organ having its bilateral origin from the third pharyngeal pouch. It appears to be a single organ but actually it is bilobed. It attains its maximum development at puberty and then it begins to involute. The parenchyma is replaced by adipocytes and lymphocyte production declines. Here we present a large thymus with a small area of persistent active tissue in it which was obtained during routine undergraduate dissection class. Tissues taken from different quadrants of the large thymic mass were processed, embedded in paraffin and sections were taken for hematoxylin and eosin staining which showed presence of thymic tissue in only one quadrant. Further sections from that quadrant was treated with cytokeratin to confirm its epithelial origin. Therefore knowledge of a large persistent thymus will be helpful to the radiologists and surgeons for making differential diagnosis and in avoiding unnecessary surgical intervention.

Undescended cecum with accessory right colic artery: a rare case report.

Midgut malrotation and incomplete rotation are common causes of neonatal intestinal obstruction. At end of 10 week of intrauterine life, cecum will be placed in subhepatic region temporarily and descends to right lower quadrant by eleventh week. Arrest of cecum in subhepatic region or undescended cecum is a rare congenital anomaly of mid gut. Usually, it remains asymptomatic and is diagnosed incidentally. If any pathology occurs in anomalous part, like appendicitis then the diagnosis and treatment will be challenging in all age groups. Variation in blood supply have also been reported with anomalies leading to iatrogenic injuries during colonoscopy and surgeries. Lack of knowledge of these rare variations may lead to delayed diagnosis of appendicitis leading to perforation and surgical emergencies. In the present case, we describe an undescended cecum and its associated variation in branching pattern of superior mesenteric artery.