RESEARCH ARTICLE 3D Topography of the Young Adult Anal Sphincter Complex Reconstructed from Undeformed Serial Anatomical Sections Yi Wu1,3, Noshir F. Dabhoiwala1, Jaco Hagoort2, Jin-Lu Shan3, Li-Wen Tan3, Bin-Ji Fang3, Shao-Xiang Zhang3*, Wouter H. Lamers1* 1 Tytgat Institute for Liver and Intestinal Research, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2 Department of Anatomy & Embryology, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 3 Institute of Computing Medicine, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, 400038, China *
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[email protected] (WHL) Abstract OPEN ACCESS Citation: Wu Y, Dabhoiwala NF, Hagoort J, Shan J-L, Background Tan L-W, Fang B-J, et al. (2015) 3D Topography of Pelvic-floor anatomy is usually studied by artifact-prone dissection or imaging, which the Young Adult Anal Sphincter Complex requires prior anatomical knowledge. We used the serial-section approach to settle conten- Reconstructed from Undeformed Serial Anatomical Sections. PLoS ONE 10(8): e0132226. doi:10.1371/ tious issues and an interactive 3D-pdf to make the results widely accessible. journal.pone.0132226 Editor: John Souglakos, University General Hospital Method of Heraklion and Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology, 3D reconstructions of undeformed thin serial anatomical sections of 4 females and 2 males School of Medicine, University of Crete, GREECE (21–35y) of the Chinese Visible Human database. Received: October 8, 2014 Accepted: June 12, 2015 Findings Published: August 25, 2015 Based on tendinous septa and muscle-fiber orientation as segmentation guides, the anal- Copyright: © 2015 Wu et al. This is an open access sphincter complex (ASC) comprised the subcutaneous external anal sphincter (EAS) and article distributed under the terms of the Creative the U-shaped puborectal muscle, a part of the levator ani muscle (LAM).