Variations of the peripheral nerve formation, communication and distribution are clinically important because such knowledge can be used for proper planning of surgeries and evaluating effects of nerve injuries and clinical imaging. Median nerve is known to have several such variations. However studies done on median nerve in Sri Lankan subjects are spars. The objective of this study was to find out anatomical variations of the median nerve with regards to its variations in roots and relations to the arteries in the axilla and arm. The study was done using 98 upper limbs of 49 formalin fixed cadavers. They were dissected and anatomy of the median nerve formations was studied focusing its variations of the roots and relation to the arteries. Anatomical variations of MN formation were observed in 33 (33.67 %) upper limbs with 4 bilateral and 25 unilateral variations. These variations were classified broadly in to two groups, variations of roots (15.3 %) and variation of arterial relations (18.37 %). There were three types of numerical variations (9.18 %) and three types of morphological variations (6.12 %) of roots. The median nerve was found to form in relation to the 2nd part of the axillary artery in 6.12 %, abnormal relation to the 3rd part of the axillary artery in 2.04 %, normal relation to the 3rd part of the axillary artery in 81.63 %, and brachial artery in 10.2 % of the specimens. The current study highlights the presence of different anatomical variations at median nerve formation with regards to its roots and arterial relations and describes three rare forms of anomalies which were not found on literature survey.
KEY WORDS: Median nerve; Roots variations; Abnormal relations; Morphology.
