Anatomical relationships between the superficial brachial arteries and the brachial plexus in humans, and their morphological significance

Since the significance of a superficial subscapular artery was reported by Yamada [22], macroscopic anatomical studies of axillary artery morphogenesis have been conducted by many authors. Notably, Japanese anatomists have reported important and groundbreaking theories on the morphogenesis of normal and aberrant axillary arteries. These include a description of the superficial brachial artery (BS) and Adachi’s brachial plexus (AxC) by Chiba [6–7], the possible routes of the axillary artery by Aizawa et al. [3] and the morphological significance of the inferior pectoral artery (Pi) by Kodama et al. [16] and the deep axillary artery by Honma et al. [10, 11]. We have also identified 11 BS among 322 sides of 161 adult human cadavers. We traced the BS with the AxC in 1 case, the development of a superficial subscapular artery in 3 cases, the development of a Pi in 3 cases, an unclear situation in 3 cases and a lateral median superficial brachial artery (BSML) in 1 case. Moreover, we carried out a fibre analysis of the BSML in order to understand the morphology more completely. Our findings are discussed herein. We have therefore described our cases and compare them with references, presenting gross anatomical data on their morphogenesis in an effort to unify experimental embryological data.