that is pretty amazing 46% of those cadavers had anomalies!!

I wonder what nationalities those cadavers might have been?
from -Department of Surgery, University of Oulu, Finland.

And

Hello Lisa--

i think it was jane (hello, jane, where are you?) who said TOS is simply not as rare as "they" would have us believe....

but i personally also think it important to keep in mind here, as we read these studies, that just because a human being may have an anatomic anomaly in the thoracic outlet, does NOT mean that TOS is going to develop or become symptomatic, even, in that human's lifetime.

a perfect example of this is cervical ribs. the oft-quoted statistic there is, i think, only 1% of the general population is born with an "extra" set of so-called C-ribs, and out of that only a mere 1% sub-set ever develops any signs of TOS. (someone will correct me if i'm off on the %'s, but you get the point i'm trying to make, i'm sure.)

so i would propose, then, that one would have to go back and look into the medical histories of the living, breathing persons who once inhabited those cadavers for a closer and very hard look, in order to extrapolate the "real" numbers out of a study like the one posted here...

otherwise the study is sort of meanlingless, at least to me. interesting, yes. just doesn't tell me much of anything. i don't know if i'm making any sense here mind you, just thinking out loud (trying not to hurt myself!).

and of course, this is just my four cents. it used to be two cents, but inflation, you know!...

this also reminds me of the scalenus minimus "debate." dr. ahn swears to me that almost EVERYONE is born with an extra scalene muscle. other top TOS docs, i think anyway, put the % much lower, somewhere around 33.3%, i believe? who the heck knows; i just know i hurt! dr. annest didn't find no extra scalene in my neck when he cut me open, although he fully expected to. he did find my anterior and my middle scalene muscles to be v e r y large - no big surprise there; they've been in severe spasm for decades now. whatever, whatever. now they have to get yanked out entirely i guess, byebye!!(!)

alison

To me, it just confirms that the predisposition is not that rare, which makes sense as the thoracic outlet is such a narrow passage for all those structures to pass through in the first place, in an anatomically "normal" human. But how did they first decide what anatomically normal WAS anyway?
Case in point, the disagreement over how many people today are born with a scalene minimus, no longer useful but thought to be a carry-over from when we walked on all fours?

Is it accurate to call all of these anomalies (or abnormalies - Lisa, I like that term!) - or are the most common ones just variations, with some variations more susceptible to injury? Or maybe a better way to put it, less likely to bounce back from stress and/or injury?

I had an extra scalene but no pain or parasthesia for 41 years til injured. When Dr A. removed it, it was wrapped all over and around the plexus, and ran tight up beneath the vein, causing pain with every movement of my arm.
Even though the sc. minimus ran such an awkward course, without the injury I would have been completely unaware of it - and TOS!

Alison, could you please make that a nickel? Pennies are just so annoying!

beth

My 4th Great Grandfather was German! He was born in 1759 in the Electorate of Hannover. He arrived in Charleston, SC around 1778. Maybe I should blame my neck problems on him..........

Rhonda

I have NO German in me (thankfully? ...except i do like beer and brats.. hmmm) Until my dad and mom's generation, they were all "laborer's" for the most part- Italian on my dads side and French Canadian/Scotch Irish mutt on my moms side . While I have given up on pinpointing where/what caused my initial injury, I think I'm slightly pre-disposed - I have a pretty short trunk - i.e. less room for all that junk in my trunk - That, and my shoulders slump forward, and I worked out ALOT, and lifted a bunch of things i shouldn't have. SO I guess that its probably not genetic. anywho. take care...... oh. one more thing. I'm a guy, so i don't have .... other things that would contribute to the problem.