The latissimus dorsi is the muscle reconstructive surgeons reach for when they want a sure thing. It is broad, it is fed by a dependable set of vessels, and its anatomy is consistent enough that surgical planning is usually straightforward.
A team at Luzerner Kantonsspital in Lucerne, Switzerland, opened a 69-year-old woman's back expecting exactly that. There was no muscle. Further dissection found no tendon remnants and no muscle fibers at either the origin or the insertion. The surrounding musculature looked completely symmetric.
