Background and Objective:

Rectus abdominis muscle usually have 3 tendinous intersections. The aims of high definition abdominal liposculpture is to delineate the musculature. One of its difficulties is to determine by the surface anatomy the number of metamers presents.

The aim of this study is to describe the variations in the number of metamers of the rectus abdominis muscle in the Chilean population and determine if there is a pattern that helps to the surgical mark of the abdominis metamers.

Methods:

Randomized sample of 200 patients who met inclusion criteria: >18 years of age and under 65 years, tomographic study of the abdomen and pelvis with coronal sequence, performed at the Clinical Hospital of the University of Chile between January and May 2017; and exclusion: pathology of the abdominal wall, previous abdominal surgery or inadequate imaging study. Sex, number of tendinous intersections supra and infraumbilical, short costal angle, complete costal angle, xipho-umbilical distance and umbilico-pubic measures were described. The data were analyzed with STATA® v13, being considered statistically significant with p<0.05 and 95% confidence intervals.

Results:

One hundred patients (50%) were women, mean age 40.9 ± 12.1 years, and 154 patients (77%) had 3 metamers. There were no significant differences by sex (p=0.393). Neither in the analysis of the xipho-umbilical distance (p=0.185) and the umbilical-pubic distance (p=0.327) by genders. The number of metamers is in inverse relation to its size. The angulation of the costal ridge relative to the xiphoid is significantly lower in women (69.4 ± 15.2 versus 80.2 ± 14.2).

Conclusions:

The most common rectus abdominis muscle pattern in the Chilean population corresponds to 3 supra umbilical metamers for each side (six-pack). The smaller the relationship between the xifo-umbilical distance / xifo-pubic distance, less number of metamers of the rectus abdominis. It was not possible to predict the number of metamers by another anthropometric measurement.

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