A case of a hepatosplenomesenteric trunk combined with a hepatocolic trunk

Abstract

An understanding of the variations in the blood supply of the foregut and midgut are of critical importance to surgeons performing transplants, liver and biliary surgery, resection of tumors and various gastrointestinal procedures, as well as to interventional radiologists engaged in vessel embolization. During the dissection of a 95-year-old female cadaver as part of a course in medical gross anatomy at the University of California at Davis a rare series of vascular variations were observed. The left gastric artery arose independently from the abdominal aorta at the location of a typical celiac trunk. The common hepatic artery and splenic artery branched from a common vessel originating from a hepatosplenomesenteric trunk. Just inferior to the hepatosplenic trunk a hepatocolic trunk, which gave rise to an accessory right hepatic artery, dorsal pancreatic artery and a wandering mesenteric artery, branched from the superior mesenteric artery. This rare combination of clinically relevant variations was likely due to the abnormal partitioning and regression of the primitive splanchnic arteries during embryonic development.

Keywords

• anatomical variation
• arc of Riolan
• celiac trunk
• celiacomesenteric trunk
• superior mesenteric artery

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