Syed Nazeer Ahmed¹, Mirza Nisar H. Baig², Pradeep H Murudkar³

¹Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy, Khaja Banda Nawaz Institute of Medical Sciences, Gulbarga,Karnataka, ²Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, Prathima Institute of Medical Sciences,Karimnagar, Telangana, 3Professor and Head, Department of Anatomy, Khaja Banda Nawaz Institute of Medical Sciences, Gulbarga, Karnataka.

Corresponding Author: Dr. Syed Nazeer Ahmed, Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy, Khaja Banda Nawaz Institute of Medical Sciences, Gulbarga, Karnataka

Email: nazeer1715@gmail.com

Introduction: Plantaris tendon is a long, slender tendon having the property of stretching and can be converted into a thin sheath when stretched. The plantaris tendon has been used in various tendon repairs and also membrane created from plantaris tendon may be wrapped around tendon anastomosis.

Materials and Methods: In this study of 50 embalmed lower limbs, various parameters of the plantaris tendon i.e. length, breadth, thickness were measured. Data analyzed as numbers and mean value. The unpaired t test was used to study the significance of the differences in male and females and right and left plantaris tendon.

Results:The total 25 adult cadavers studied of which 23 were males and 2 were females, out of these there were 25 left and 25 right limbs. It has been observed that the mean tendon length was more in male cadavers compared with female cadavers (33.38±7.430, 30.73±.957) whereas mean tendon breadth was slightly more in female cadavers as compa r ed wi th ma l e s ( . 3085±.14115, .3125±.08539). The dimension of left side tendon in length (32.97±7.209, 33.36±7.256), breadth (.2940±.11962, .3236±.15332) and thickness (.056±.0369, .080±.0951) was slightly more on the left side compared with the right side. No statistical significance was obtained in the morphology of the tendon in the context of right and left side as well as male and female.

Conclusion: As the plantaris tendon is a tensile and stretchable structure, it is used as a strong reinforcement membrane and can be useful for surgeons performing various reconstructive surgeries. In such scenario study of morphological characteristics of the tendon is of utmost importance.

Keywords :Plantaris tendon, Tendon grafting, Plantaris graft.