[Surgical applications of anatomical variations of the median nerve at the wrist].

After a brief report of median nerve anatomy at wrist, authors describe terminal variations of its distribution. Classic description of five terminal sensitive and motor median nerve branches is not constant. Many anatomic variations have been reported and so many, classifications proposed. Lantz' classification is useful, it may be divided in four groups. Other anatomic variations concern cutaneous palmar nerve branch and different nervous anastomosis. Advantage of this anatomic study is incidence of variations on surgical access of carpal tunnel. Those nervous variations of median nerve at wrist are frequent, unknown and wrong indexed and may be so many "anatomic traps" for surgeon.