Subcostal plane

Subcostal plane

Subcostal plane refers to an imaginary horizontal line that runs across the lower edges of the thoracic cage, marked by the tenth costal cartilage on each side. It is situated on both sides of the epigastric region and is bounded medially by the paramedian lines extending from the mid-clavicular point to the mid-inguinal point and caudally by the lowest point of the tenth costal cartilages.From: Cracking the MRCS Viva [2019], From hypochondrium to hypochondria [2023]

Abdomen

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Published in David Heylings, Stephen Carmichael, Samuel Leinster, Janak Saada, Bari M. Logan, Ralph T. Hutchings, McMinn’s Concise Human Anatomy, 2017

David Heylings, Stephen Carmichael, Samuel Leinster, Janak Saada, Bari M. Logan, Ralph T. Hutchings

Occasionally, the subcostal plane is used instead of the transpyloric. It lies at the lower border of the rib cage to pass through L2, and is the lower point of the spinal cord in the adult. The supracristal plane joining the highest points of the iliac crest passes through the L4 vertebra and can be used for the lower horizontal plane. A simpler and less precise way to divide the abdomen is to draw vertical and horizontal lines through the umbilicus, so dividing it into right and left upper and lower quadrants.

From hypochondrium to hypochondria

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Published in Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 2023

Régis Olry

During the second half of the seventeenth century, Danish anatomist Thomas Bartholin (1616–1680) wrote that the abdominal cavity’s “superolateral portion is called hypochondrium” (Bartholin 1677, 13). More precisely, the hypochondrium is one of nine topographical regions of the abdominal cavity. Located on both sides of the epigastric region, it is limited medially by the paramedian lines that extend from the mid-clavicular point to the mid-inguinal point, and caudally by the subcostal plane that joins the lowest point of the tenth costal cartilages. The spleen lies in the left hypochondrium, and the liver and gallbladder in the right.

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Abdomen

From hypochondrium to hypochondria