The morphological study of human deltoid ligament of Ankle joint in situ

Abstract

Background and Objectives: The deltoid ligament is a very tough and strong ligament of the ankle joint. Different studies had been done by many investigators to find out its involvement in different types of ankle trauma and diseases. There is scanty of paper in the study of morphology of deltoid ligament among Kyrgyz (Mangolion race) context, this study was carried out to fill this gap in the literature.

Material and Methods: Twenty-five limbs from cadevar and 32 of fresh dead (from freezer) bodies were selected for the study. Following the dissection, the parts, borders and the attachments of the superficial fibres of the ligament was identified and their attachments were established by inspection, palpation and by slight evertion of the ankle joint. The extents of their proximal and distal attachment were also measured. Mid way between the proximal and distal attachment of the anterior and posterior border ligament point were plotted through which the breadth of the respective ligament was measured again the vernier calipers. Data were entered in Excel and SPSS and were analyzed.

Results: The result showed that the longest ligament was the tibionavicular and the shortest was the tibiotalar ligament. Similarly the broadest ligament was found to be the tibiotalar and the narrowest was the tibiocalcaneal ligament. There was no significant variation found in the length, breadth and the attachment of the ligament in terms of the sex and side of the limb. The interesting result which was obtained from the correlation coefficient was that the lengths of the tibiocalcaneal and tibiotalar ligaments were found to be increased with increasing age.

Conclusion: The lengthening of the tibiocalcaneal and tibiotalar ligament, increased breadth of tibiotalar ligament and increased extent of origin of the ligament in old age which was evident in this study.

 Janaki Medical College Journal of Medical Sciences (2015) Vol. 3 (2): 50-57