rates, and presence of a fabella was uncorrelated with height and age. We also found a significant increase in fabella prevalence rates through time, but we are unsure why this has occurred and why there has not been an increase in other sesamoid bones in the human body during the same time span.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) and the Anatomy Classroom of Ajou University Medical School for use of the CT scans, made available through the Visible Korean and Digital Korean Projects, and the members of Imperial College London Musculoskeletal Modelling research group for useful discussions about the fabella. We thank Marvin Yeh for help in translating some of the manuscripts, and Sandra Martelli for an informative discussion on sesamoid bones. The authors wish to thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor for comments which improved this manuscript. This research was commissioned by the National Institute for Health Research using Official Development Assistance (ODA) funding. E.D.F. is funded through the Royal British Legion Centre for Blast Injury Studies.
Author contributions
M.A.B., E.D.F., and A.M.J.B. conceived and designed the project. M.A.B. and E.D.F. acquired/analysed the data and performed the systematic review. M.A.B., E.D.F., and A.M.J.B. wrote/edited the manuscript and approved the final version of this article.
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