Arterial anatomy of the human carpus extraosseous blood supply in the Japanese : Review of literature on this blood supply in Americans

There have been a few studies of the arterial anatomy of the human carpus and several studies have been made of the arterial arches and recurrent arteries in the carpal region. However, further investigation is required. We describe here the results of a study of the vascular anatomy of arterioles, 60 μm in minimum diameter, among the extraosseous vessels in 183 human hands. The study was performed by investigating stereoscopic arteriographs. Six arterial arches and six recurrent arteries were investigated. We compared the frequencies of carpal feeding arteries of Japanese with those of Americans (the Americans being of white, oriental, and black origin), and studied the differences from an anatomical standpoint. It has been reported that in Americans, there are only two recurrent arteries on the palmar side, in the ulnar and radial positions, and that the frequencies cannot be compared with those found in other studies, because of differences in methodology. However, we believe that, irrespective of the differences in methodology in the studies reviewed and in our study, it can be assumed that Japanese have a higher frequency of recurrent arteries than Americans.