1Junior Resident,
2Senior Resident,
3Professor,
4Director Professor & Head
*Corresponding Author Dr. Mukta Rani Professor Lady
A bifid sternum is a rare congenital anomaly generally diagnosed as asymptomatic at birth. However sometimes it may present as chance finding in adult life during the postmortem examination. This article documents the occurrence of bifid xiphisternumduring autopsy which may be misleading and may result in serious erroneous conclusions, particularly when evaluating skeletonised human remains.
Soft tissues removed from themacerated sterna by blunt dissection and the findings in xiphisternal ending recorded.
Out of total fifty sternum studied bifid xiphoid process was seen in only 5 (10%) sternums. Of these, bifid process with joined ends was found in only one (2%) sternum and bifid process with unjoined xiphoid in four (Figures 1 and 2) of the sterni. Elongated xiphisternum was found in only one of the cases (Figure 3), broad and thin in only one (2%) (Figure 4) whereas curved xiphoid was found in two of them.
Presence of variant morphology of xiphoid process as bifid, duplicated or trifurcated may be mistaken for fractures during imaging of a case of road traffic accidents. Moreover their antemortem records in the form of previous x rays make important data for the identification of skeletonised remains during autopsy.
Bifid, xiphisternum, sternum, xiphoid process, congenital anomaly, morphological variation
