Emerging patterns of the cervical cutaneous nerves in Asians

Numerous reports exist upon clinical viewpoints of the four cervical cutaneous nerves. Unfortunately, a detailed description of the cervical cutaneous nerves has not yet been published. For this reason, administering effective anaesthesia to a particular nerve branch is difficult. The aim of this study was to clarify the anatomical knowledge about the emerging patterns of the cervical cutaneous nerves in the superficial neck using 35 Korean cadavers (22 male, 13 female). Four cervical cutaneous nerve branches penetrating the fascia of the posterior border of the sternocleidomastoid muscle (SCM) were classified into seven types based on the locations of their nerve emergence. Among these, the separated type (L-G-T-S) was the most frequent (50%), followed by the L-G · T-S type (20.3%), in which the great auricular nerve (G) and the transverse cervical nerve (T) emerged at the same level on the posterior SCM border.