Radiologic anatomy of the rabbit liver on hepatic venography, arteriography, portography, and cholangiography.
Seo TS, Oh JH, Lee DH, et al. Radiologic anatomy of the rabbit liver on hepatic venography, arteriography, portography, and cholangiography. Invest Radiol 2001;36:186-192.


OBJECTIVE
The radiologic anatomy of rabbit liver has received little study but is important in many experimental investigations.


METHODS
Twenty-four rabbits were studied by using hepatic venograms, aortograms, hepatic arteriograms, cholangiograms, and portograms.


RESULTS
In all cases, the right, middle, and left hepatic veins drained into the inferior vena cava just below the diaphragm, and the caudate lobe hepatic vein drained more inferiorly. The proper hepatic artery was a branch of the common hepatic artery in 96%. The first branch of the proper hepatic artery was the caudate lobe artery. The remaining main hepatic artery was divided into the right and left hepatic arteries. The left hepatic artery was further divided into the medial and lateral segmental branches in 95%. The anatomy of the portal vein or bile duct was the same as the hepatic artery in 100% of cases.


CONCLUSIONS
Knowledge of the normal patterns and variations of the vessels and bile duct will be helpful for experiments of the rabbit liver in future studies.
Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Kyung Hee University Hospital, Seoul, Korea.
T S
TS
Seo
J H
JH
Oh
D H
DH
Lee
Y T
YT
Ko
Y
Y
Yoon
D000818:Animals; D002758:Cholangiography; D006499:Hepatic Artery / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006503:Hepatic Veins / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D008099:Liver / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D011172:Portography; D011817:Rabbits