Medial dorsal cutaneous nerve of foot

At a glance

English

Medial dorsal cutaneous nerve of foot

Latin (TA2)

Nervus cutaneus medialis dorsalis pedis

System

Nerve

Region

Lower limb

Side

Paired, left and right

About the medial dorsal cutaneous nerve of foot

The medial dorsal cutaneous nerve is the larger of the two branches into which the superficial fibular nerve divides once it has pierced the deep fascia in the lower third of the leg. It descends across the front of the ankle joint, superficial to the extensor retinaculum and roughly in line with the tendon of extensor hallucis longus, and passes onto the medial part of the dorsum of the foot.

On the dorsum it splits into a pair of dorsal digital branches. The first runs along the inner side of the great toe, and the second runs to the cleft between the second and third toes and supplies their facing sides. The first web space, between the great and second toes, is not part of its territory; it belongs to the medial terminal branch of the deep fibular nerve, with which this nerve communicates. Before dividing it also gives branches to skin along the inner foot and ankle, and it links with the saphenous nerve along the inner border of the foot.

With the intermediate dorsal cutaneous nerve, it accounts for most of the skin on top of the foot and toes. Its digital branches stop short of the tips, whose nail beds are supplied by the plantar digital nerves. The size of its territory varies with that of the saphenous nerve medially and the deep fibular nerve in the first space.

Lying just under the skin, the nerve is often visible over the front of the ankle when the foot is plantar flexed and inverted, and surgeons mark it before making anteromedial or anterolateral arthroscopy portals or dorsal incisions for bunion and midfoot surgery. Tight shoe laces or straps can compress it over the dorsum of the foot, and a cut or scar can leave a tender neuroma. Damage produces numbness or tingling over the inner dorsum and great toe while sparing the first web space, a useful way to tell it apart from a deep fibular nerve lesion.

Course and supply

Arises from

The superficial fibular nerve, dividing in the lower third of the leg after piercing the deep fascia.

Ends in

Ends as dorsal digital nerves to the inner side of the great toe and to the facing sides of toes two and three.

Supplies

Sensory to the skin of the medial ankle and dorsum of the foot, the dorsum of the great toe medially, and the second web space.