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Right hepatic artery from splenic artery: the four-leaf clover of hepatic surgery

  • Anatomic Variations
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Abstract

The anatomy of hepatic arteries is one of the most variable. Accurate awareness of all the possible anatomic variations is crucial in the upper GI surgery and especially in liver and pancreas transplantation. The most frequent anatomical variants are: a replaced or accessory right hepatic artery (RHA) from the superior mesenteric artery (6.3–21 %), a replaced or accessory left hepatic artery (LHA) from the left gastric artery (LGA) (3–18 %) or a combination of these two variants (up to 7.4 %). Herein, we describe the case of a 67-year-old cadaveric organ donor who presented a RHA originating from the splenic artery (SA) associated with both a CHA originating from the celiac trunk (CT) and a LHA originating from the LGA.

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Abbreviations

CHA:

Common hepatic artery

RHA:

Right hepatic artery

LHA:

Left hepatic artery

SA:

Splenic artery

LGA:

Left gastric artery

CT:

Celiac trunk

SMA:

Superior mesenteric artery

PV:

Portal vein

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Benedetta Furgiuele and Adam Bisoffi for their contributions.

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Correspondence to Francesco Caruso.

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The authors declare that no conflict of interest exists.

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All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008.

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Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

Additional informed consent was obtained from all patients for which identifying information is included in this article.

All institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed.

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Caruso, F., Dondossola, D., Fornoni, G. et al. Right hepatic artery from splenic artery: the four-leaf clover of hepatic surgery. Surg Radiol Anat 38, 867–871 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00276-016-1617-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00276-016-1617-x

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