Trapezium at a glance
- What it is
- A four-sided carpal bone at the thumb side of the distal row.
- Location
- Lies between the scaphoid and the first metacarpal, also articulating with the trapezoid and second metacarpal.
- Function
- Forms the saddle-shaped carpometacarpal joint of the thumb, allowing opposition.
- Body system
- Skeletal · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA24444 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- A groove medial to its tubercle carries the tendon of flexor carpi radialis.
Clinical relevance
The thumb carpometacarpal joint is a common site of osteoarthritis.
Structures next to the trapezium
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Trapezoid · skeletal
- Dorsal carpal branch of radial artery · cardiovascular
- Scaphoid · skeletal
- Abductor pollicis brevis · muscular
- Opponens pollicis · muscular
- Deep palmar arch · cardiovascular
- Capitate · skeletal
- Flexor pollicis brevis · muscular
- Superficial palmar arterial arch · cardiovascular
- Oblique head of adductor pollicis · muscular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Trapezium (FMA24444). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
- OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §7.1 Divisions of the Skeletal System. Rice University, 2022.
- Mitsuhashi N. et al. (2009). BodyParts3D: 3D structure database for anatomical concepts. Nucleic Acids Research 37, D782–D785. Data © The Database Center for Life Science, CC BY 4.0.
Related anatomy
Explore the whole body in the interactive 3D human anatomy model, or browse the A–Z list of human structures.