Science
How Different Are Melanesians?
New discoveries could alter anatomy textbooks
Fascinating research findings of variations in the location of the spinal accessory nerve and the middle thyroid vein in Melanesian people compared to other races are likely to alter the standard anatomy textbooks of the world relating to head and neck surgeries.
The work of an undergraduate student at the University of Papua New Guinea Medical School was presented at a meeting of the Society of Head & Neck of Fellow Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (FRCAS) held in Sydney, Australia in November.
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Medical experts and among them professors in the field of head and neck surgery presented papers at the meeting in which a fourth year anatomy student from Bouganville, Damien Hasola, also presented his discoveries.
Hasola was the only undergraduate student from the Pacific region invited to present his finding that further distinguishes Melanesians from other races.
His paper was ranked second among numerous papers presented at the end of the FRCAS meeting and he was offered a work attachment programme.
This is to be part of his final year elective at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital’s Department of Plastic and Reconstruction Surgery in Sydney, Australia, alongside Professor Christopher O’Brien.
Head of the Anatomy Division of the School of Medicine & Health Sciences in Papua New Guinea, Dr Osborne Liko, who supervised the student in his research, expressed confidence that centuries of acceptable norm of the location of the spinal accessory nerve that all medical experts of the world know is likely to be changed.
Hasola, a fourth year Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) student majoring in anatomy discovered in his study of 103 post-mortem bodies at the Port Moresby General Hospital that the spinal accessory nerve (a motor nerve supply of the sternocleidomastoid & trapezium muscle in the neck region) runs posteriorly (dorsally) in 64% of the cases to the internal jugular vein (a vein that drains venous blood, starting from sinuses in the brain) and anteriorly (ventrally) in 36% of the cases.
In the same study, he discovered that a middle thyroid vein (a venous drainage system of the middle thyroid gland in the neck) was absent in about 60% of the cases. Of those, which were missing, about half (52%) were from the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.
This is one of the interesting studies conducted by an upcoming Melanesian scientist and the research findings are apparently the first of its kind in Papua New Guinea.
It completely changes the acceptable belief that all structures in humans in spite of race and colour are located in the same area and runs in the same direction.
The new discovery shows some variations in relation to the mentioned structures as compared to what doctors take for granted as a norm as described in the standard anatomical textbooks.
More work is needed though to increase the volume and the statistics of the findings.
“The variations in the structures mentioned could only be a tip of an iceberg and some more variations may still exist in the Melanesian population, which could perhaps contribute immensely to the international medical literature in the near future,” Liko said.
The findings arose from one component of the MBBS study in anatomy for students to be introduced to research methodology.
Liko said the findings are vital to head and neck as well as ear, nose and throat surgeons in Papua New Guinea, who deal with various surgeries of the head and neck regions. It may also apply to other Melanesians.
It is also important information to medical doctors who may take for granted the known norm of the location of the spinal accessory nerve, particularly at the posterior triangle of the neck.
Without appreciating these variations, one could jeopardise this nerve, even in doing a simple biopsy for a TB lymph node in that neck region, resulting in the death of patients.
