title: Case report: a common trunk of the coronary arteries.
abstract: We describe the heart from a 79-year-old woman with no medical history of cardiac complaints. Her heart shows a regular right coronary artery (RCA) and a variant left coronary artery (LCA) arising from the right sinus of Valsalva. The common stem of the RCA and the LCA is extremely short. The LCA depicts a preinfundibular course with a cranial-anterior loop and reaches the intersection of the anterior interventricular sulcus and the left coronary sulcus, where it divides into the regular branches, the anterior interventricular branch (left anterior descending, LAD) and the circumflex branch (left circumflex, LCx). All further branching resembles a normal distribution with the posterior interventricular branch coming for the RCA. Such a variant LCA is extremely rare with a reported incidence of 0.17 %. However, recognition and angiographic demonstration of such a variation assume the highest priority in a patient undergoing, for instance, direct coronary artery surgery or prosthetic valve replacement.
authors: Division for Clinical and Functional Anatomy, Medical University of Innsbruck, Müllerstrasse 59, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria. erich.brenner@i-med.ac.at.
authors: Erich
authors: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6739-1198
authors: E
authors: Brenner
authors: Division for Clinical and Functional Anatomy, Medical University of Innsbruck, Müllerstrasse 59, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria.
authors: Elisabeth
authors: E
authors: Pechriggl
authors: Division for Clinical and Functional Anatomy, Medical University of Innsbruck, Müllerstrasse 59, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria.
authors: Marit
authors: M
authors: Zwierzina
authors: Division for Clinical and Functional Anatomy, Medical University of Innsbruck, Müllerstrasse 59, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria.
authors: Romed
authors: R
authors: Hörmann
authors: Division for Clinical and Functional Anatomy, Medical University of Innsbruck, Müllerstrasse 59, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria.
authors: Bernhard
authors: B
authors: Moriggl
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D063405:Anatomic Variation; D002102:Cadaver; D000072226:Computed Tomography Angiography / Q000379:methods; D017023:Coronary Angiography / Q000379:methods; D003330:Coronary Vessel Anomalies / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003331:Coronary Vessels / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D004210:Dissection; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
keywords: Anatomical variation; Coronary arteries; Mixed trunk