Anatomy & Physiology: Current Research
Open Access

The Importance of Sternalis Muscle in Breast Surgery

¹Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, Ankara University, Turkey

²Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, Rize University, Turkey

Corresponding Author:

Cihangir Akyol
Ankara University School of Medicine Department of Surgery
06100 Sihhiye Ankara Turkey
Tel: 00905052653497
Fax: 00903123093989
E-mail: [email protected]

Received Date: July 16, 2014; Accepted Date: September 22, 2014; Published Date: September 24, 2014

Citation: Kocaay F, Basceken SI, Akyol C, Sari T, Celik U, et al. (2014) The Importance of Sternalis Muscle in Breast Surgery. Anat Physiol 4:160. doi:10.4172/2161-0940.1000160

Copyright: © 2014 Kocaay F, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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The sternalis muscle is a well-known anatomic variant of the anterior chest wall from anatomists. Nevertheless, surgeons and radiologists are not familiar with this entity. It is the most frequently reported incidental finding during routine anatomic dissection and most common seen during mastectomy. In this case, during a right modified radical mastectomy operation on a 72-year-old female patient, a sternalis muscle was detected on the pectoralis major muscle in the superficial fascia. It was in craniocaudal position and was paralel to the body of sternum, so we protected the muscle. In some cases the sternal muscle is determined intraoperatively and the clinicians have to be familiar with this entity.