The myloglossus in a human cadaver study: common or uncommon anatomical structure?
BACKGROUND
Additional extrinsic muscles of the tongue are reported in literature and one of them is the myloglossus muscle (MGM). Since MGM is nowadays considered as anatomical variant, the aim of this study is to clarify some open questions by evaluating and describing the myloglossal anatomy (including both MGM and its ligamentous counterpart) during human cadaver dissections.


METHODS
Twenty-one regions (including masticator space, sublingual space and adjacent areas) were dissected and the presence and appearance of myloglossus were considered, together with its proximal and distal insertions, vascularisation and innervation.


RESULTS
The myloglossus was present in 61.9% of cases with muscular, ligamentous or mixed appearance and either bony or muscular insertion. Facial artery provided myloglossal vascularisation in the 84.62% and lingual artery in the 15.38%; innervation was granted by the trigeminal system (buccal nerve and mylohyoid nerve), sometimes (46.15%) with hypoglossal component.


CONCLUSIONS
These data suggest us to not consider myloglossus as a rare anatomical variant.
B
B
Buffoli
M
M
Ferrari
F
F
Belotti
D
D
Lancini
M A
MA
Cocchi
M
M
Labanca
M
M
Tschabitscher
R
R
Rezzani
Section of Anatomy and Physiopathology, Department of Clinical and Experimental Sciences, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy. luigi.rodella@unibs.it.
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LF
Rodella
D002102:Cadaver; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D014059:Tongue / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000294:innervation*
anatomical variant; dissection; myloglossus; tongue