European Journal of Anatomy

Official Journal of The Spanish Society of Anatomy
Cover Volume 23 - Number 5
Eur J Anat, 23 (5): 341-353 (2019)

A morphometric anatomical study of the right coronary artery in Vietnamese

Vu Hoang Nguyen1A, Ernest F. Talarico, Jr.2B

1Anatomy Department, 2Anatomy & Cell Biology, AUniversity of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, BIndiana University School of Medicine-Northwest, Gary, Indiana, USA

ABSTRACT Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a major cause of death and disability in developed countries, and incidence of CAD is increasing annually in the un-derdeveloped world. Today, percutaneous coro-nary intervention plays a major role both in diagno-sis and treatment of CAD. As a result, an under-standing of the anatomy of the coronary artery sys-tem is vital cardiologists. Yet, studies are lacking that focus on Vietnamese hearts. The objective of this study was to examine the morphometric ana-tomical variation of the right coronary artery (RCA) in Vietnamese cadavers. The hearts from 125 ca-davers were used in the study. In all hearts, the RCA originated from the right aortic sinus, had a right marginal branch, and gave rise to one to three right posterior ventricular (RPV) branches. In 96.8% of hearts, the posterior interventricular branch (PIV) originated from the RCA; in 3.2% from the left circumflex artery (LCX), and the mean diameter was 2.09 mm ± 0.62 mm. The RCA had a mean diameter and length of 4.21 mm ± 0.64 mm and 122.5 mm ± 17.8 mm, respectively, and terminated between the crux and left border (72%) and at the crux (14.4%). The origin of the sinoatri-al node artery was 81.6% from the RCA, 16.8% from the LCX, and 1.6% from both the RCA andLCX. There were one to four right atrial branches observed across the hearts studied; a maximum of 32% (one branch) and a minimum of 12.8% (four branches). In 68.8% of hearts the conus artery originated from the RCA. In 8.8%, it arose from the right aortic sinus at the same site as the RCA, but in 22.4% away from this site of origin. The RCA gave rise to one to eight right anterior ventric-ular (RAV) branches (i.e., because they are at the anterior surface of the right ventricular); with the highest incidence of 3 branches in 37.6% of hearts. The RCA gave rise to one to seven left posterior ventricular branches; the majority of cas-es, 28.8% gave rise to 4 branches. The rare inci-dence of myocardial bridging in the right coronary system occurred in 7.2% of hearts, and each case involved the posterior interventricular branch. An-atomical variations of the RCA system can cause difficulties in imaging interpretation and interven-tional procedures. This study is the first to docu-ment these variations of the RCA system in Viet-namese hearts, contributing knowledge that is es-sential for physicians.

Keywords: Right Coronary artery â?? Circumflex artery â?? Anterior Interventricular artery â?? Intermedi-ate branch â?? Conus artery â?? Crux

European Journal of anatomy
ISSN 2340-311X (Online)