Anatomical Variations of the Celiac Trunk: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Introduction: The celiac trunk (CT) is one of the abdominal portion branches of the aortic artery and, together with the superior mesenteric and inferior mesenteric arteries, participates in the abdominal viscera vascularization through a series of anastomoses. Absence of CT or variation in the number of terminal branches implies in varied abdominal arteries origins, which may have implication in surgical approaches. Objective: To analyze the anatomical variations of the celiac trunk and possible associated surgical clinical implications. Methods:It is a systematic review of articles indexed in the PubMed, Lilacs, SciELO, Springerlink, Scienc Direct and Latindex databases from August to September 2017. Original articles involving the anatomical variations of the celiac trunk in humans were included. The presence/absence of the celiac trunk, the number of terminal branches and the place of origin of its branches in variant cases of the normal anatomical pattern, were considered for this study. Results: At the end of the research, 12 articles were selected, characterized by sample, anatomical structure evaluation method and main results. The normal anatomical pattern was the most prevalent in most studies (75.0%). CT was absent in 41.7% of the findings. The most prevalent anatomical variation was the presence of CT with bifurcation (66.7%). It was also observed the origin of the common and splenic hepatic arteries from the mesenteric arteries (25.0%). The presence of only one branch (16.7%) and quadrifurcation (8.33%) were other findings. Conclusion: CT variations are not uncommon findings, with different anatomic variants being reported. Thus, the importance of knowing the possible variations of this structure is emphasized, which may have implications for surgical interventions and imaging studies related to the abdominal region.

Coeliac trunk and its anatomic variations: a cadaveric study

“…Due to high number of articles describing variations of the celiac trunk, there was a necessity to find appropiate results evaluated in one review. Santos et al and Whitley et al presented results of the previous studies about the celiac trunk and their findings were used to elaborate and compare our results with the other studies focused on the Polish population or the cadaveric studies [32,33].…”

“…The another modified ultrasonography examinationthe 3-D contrast-enhanced ultrasonography could be used in precisely non-invasive diagnosing the celiac artery compression syndrome (CACS) [39]. The patologies of CT and SMA also could be detected by using new technique of the non-contrast MR angiography [33].…”

Anatomical Variations of the Superior Mesenteric Artery and Its Clinical and Surgical Implications in Humans

“…Although this is commonly the classical anatomical pattern, some changes have been observed regarding the SMA branches, level and its origin. Such variations and their relationship with the surrounding structures are, therefore, important from a clinical and surgical perspective 17,20 .…”

Branching pattern variations of the celiac trunk and superior mesenteric artery in a 72-year-old white female cadaver

“…Thus, alterations both in fusion and regression result in branching variation of the three major abdominal aortic branches. In addition, because their embryonic origins are closely related, persistence of interconnections or overlapping of the territories of the CT, SMA, and IMA are common [3,4,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14]18,30,31,34,[36][37][38].…”

“…Makisalo et al (1993) and Raviprasanna and Kulkarni (2018) reported one case in each of their cohorts that had an accessory LHA arising from the CT [45,56,57]. In its absence (0.38-1.4%), branches of the CT may arise from the aorta [4,7,8,27,28,34,35,38,[42][43][44]58].…”