Variant extensor muscles on the dorsum of the hand

The presence of accessory muscle bellies and tendons in the hand is of great interest to the hand surgeons. Awareness of the variations of the muscles will serve as useful guide for both in studies of human anatomy and in clinical practice today; this knowledge can be borne in mind while performing hand surgeries, tendon rerouting or transplants. These extra muscles often present as a ganglion, soft tissue tumor or mass in the hand, which could be quite misleading to the surgeon. With the purpose of preparation of the teaching and museum specimens, in two of the cadavers of elderly Jamaican African male and female, we observed accessory muscles on the dorsum of the hand. One was inserted to the index finger (extensor digitorum brevis manus) and the other was arising deep to the extensor digitorum and inserted to the middle finger (extensor medii proprius).