A previously undescribed anatomical variant is reported here, that of vermian arteries (vAs) branched from the vertebral arteries (VAs) and replacing the medial branches of the posterior inferior cerebellar arteries (PICAs) that, in turn, were leaving the basilar artery. Both vAs left the VAs in the foramen magnum. The left vA initially looped in front of the spinal root of the accessory nerve (Sp11) and then looped inferiorly on the dorsal side

A rare morphology of an aberrant innominate artery (IA) is reported here, together with additional arterial variation encountered in the respective specimen. The IA originated in the aortic arch on the left side of the trachea, coursed on that side of the trachea to reach the left thyroid lobe, turned in at a right angle to pass anterior to the trachea and immediately inferior and parallel to the thyroid isthmus, and finally it divided inferior to

Bilateral dissections of maxilla were performed in a human adult cadaver head, male, aged 53 years. After the en block removal of the soft tissues in the oral and infraorbital regions, the antero-lateral surface of maxilla was exposed and also the vestibular aspect of the upper alveolar process. An oblique labially impacted right upper canine was evidenced, completely submucosal: its apex was tangent to the maxillary sinus floor, while the superior

Myocardial bridging is a common coronary anomaly characterized by the presence of a muscle bridge above an epicardial artery. Although its involvement in the development of severe cardiovascular pathologies is disputed there are many proofs that it may possibly be associated, in particular circumstances, with sudden cardiac death, the development of malignant arrhythmias, atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, hibernation or stunning, etc. The development

The pterygopalatine fossa (PPF) is an anatomically-hidden deep extracranial space. The neural scaffold of the PPF remains anatomically understudied in humans. Moreover, there are no anatomical data in humans pointing out the extracranial trigeminovascular distributions, in contrast to the trigeminal supratentorial ones. By anatomical microdissections, the neural scaffold of the PPF and the presence of trigeminovascular projections were evaluated.

We report a case of sudden death in a 20 years old male who colapsed just minues after the beggining of a football training session. The autopsy evidenced the presence of a unique combination of coronary abnormalities: myocardial bridging at the level of both branches of the LCA; abnormal origin of the right coronary artery: 1 mm above the left semilunar valve of aorta; the initial segment of the RCA coursing within the aortic wall (0,7 cm); myocardial

CT coronary calcium scoring (CCS) is a useful test for cardiovascular risk stratification in clinical environment; its usefulness in medical legal practice wasn’t, to our knowledge, tested. In this study we aimed to evaluate whether the CCS method gives satisfactory and relevant results if applied on postmortem cardiac specimens. A postmortem cardiac specimen was evaluated with an Agatston Score of 760,56; on CT slices the exact location of the

The iliolumbar artery (ILA) of Haller is the largest nutrient pedicle of the ilium and its detailed knowledge is important for various surgical procedures that approach the lumbosacral junction, the L4/L5 disk space, the sacroiliac joint, the iliac and psoas muscles, or the lumbar spine. Also the ILA is relevant for various techniques of embolization. We aimed to evaluate the anatomic and topographic features of the ILA, by dissection on 30 human

Usually the sympathetic distribution in the pterygopalatine fossa (PPF) is considered through the pterygopalatine ganglion (PPG) sympathetic root and branches. We hypothesized that there may be a dual sympathetic path within the PPF, through the vidian nerve and the PPG and through the periarterial plexuses. We dissected 10 human adult cadavers, fixed and unfixed; we applied antibodies for tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) on 5 human adult samples of PPF

We present a sudden cardiac death case in a 43 years old male. Death was determined by an association of coronary tree anomalies (generating a chronic hypo perfusion of the posterior and lateral diaphragmatic wall of the left ventricle) and coronary fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD). A review of recent literature revealed that coronary FMD is an extremely rare (or underreported) pathologic entity, only 16 cases being reported.