Partial agenesis of the pectoralis major and minor muscle: A cadaveric case report

The pectoralis major and minor muscles, located in the anterior chest wall, are crucial for upper limb movements.

Their nonsyndromic absence is rare but significant for surgical procedures involving the axillary and pectoral regions.

Ultrasound can confirm the diagnosis and delimit the extent of the muscular abnormality, detect abnormalities of the costal cartilages, among others.

This descriptive, cadaveric case report involves a formalin-fixed 57-year-old North American male, with no clinical or family history of similar conditions. The study was conducted at the Human Anatomy Laboratory of the School of Medicine of the Universidad Finis Terrae in Santiago, Chile, in August 2022.

We present a cadaveric case of bilateral partial agenesis of the pectoralis muscles discovered during routine dissection. The pectoralis major muscle exhibited only the clavicular portion, with the sternocostal and abdominal portions absent and replaced by a thin layer of connective tissue bilaterally. The pectoralis minor muscle showed partial muscle fibers only in the most distal and inferior portions bilaterally.

This case report is significant due to the rarity of this condition without accompanying anatomical variations. Understanding this variant is valuable for clinical situations involving the shoulder and thorax region, such as trauma to the proximal third of the humerus, clavicular region, suprascapular region, and anterior chest wall. It may complicate conservative and/or surgical treatments due to different functional and irrigation patterns in the area and is also important for educating future professionals.