Sural nerve with no contribution from tibial nerve – a rare case

Introduction Sural nerve (SN) is a sensory nerve which supplies the skin of the posterolateral aspect of the distal one third of the leg, lateral malleolus, along the lateral side of the foot and little toe. The lateral sural cutaneous nerve (LSCN) arises from the common peroneal nerve (also called common fibular nerve or CFN), supplies the skin over the upper part of the lateral and posterolateral aspect of the leg. It often gives a communicating branch called peroneal communicating branch to the medial sural cutaneous nerve (MSCN) from tibial nerve (TN) and thus form sural nerve (SN) [1]. According to standard textbooks, CFN gives rise to two cutaneous branches, often from a common trunk –they are lateral sural nerve and sural communicating nerve (SCN). SCN arises near the head of fibula and crosses the lateral head of gastrocnemius muscle to join sural nerve. SCN may descend separately as far as the heel. According to some authors, SCN is also called LSCN [2, 3]. Clinically, SN is widely used for both diagnostic purpose (biopsy and nerve conduction velocity study) and therapeutic purpose (nerve grafting and surgical reconstruction) [4].