Variation, Length and Width of Tendinous Portion of Palmaris Longus and Forearm Length and Height: Is there a link? A Cadaver Study of Adult Iranians

Background: palmaris longus (pl) is a muscle with markedvariations. it is harvested as a tendon graft in many surgicalprocedures in which a certain length of tendon is required. theaims of the present study were to determine the variations ofthis tendon in iranian population and to find whether thelength of pl tendon could be estimated by measuring the forearmlength and height.methods: we examined 128 forearms of 64 cadavers. wedissected out the tendons to measure their lengths and widths.the width of the tendon was measured at its proximal end.the forearm length and height were measured from the styloidprocess of the ulna to the tip of the olecranon with the forearmin neutral rotation. the height of cadavers were measuredfrom crown to the heel in supine position.results: the palmaris longus muscles were absent bilaterallyin 5 (7 .8%) and unilaterally in 14 (21 .8%) cadavers. the overallprevalence of the absence of pl (unilateral or bilateral) was29 .6% (24 forearms of 19 cadavers). the mean length andwidth of the pl were 14.2 ± 6.3 mm and 12.8 ± 7.2 mm inmales and 4.00 ± 1.9 mm and 4 ± 2.1 mm in females, respectively. the mean forearms length and cadavers' height were 29± 1.6 ern and 172.6 ± 9.1 ern in males and 28 ± 1.2 ern and166.5 ± 8.9 em in females , respectively . a significant corre lationwas found between the length of the tendon and forearmin both males (p<0.001) and females (p<0.001) . in contrast,there was not statistically significant correlation between theforearm length and width of the tendon in either males or females(p=0 .007 in males and females).conclusions: the results of this study indicate that the length ofpalmaris longus tendon can be estimated based on forearmlength . this estimation might be useful for surgical intervention.