A case of retroesophageal right subclavian artery, with special reference to the second intercostal artery, retroesophageal right vertebral artery, and thoracic duct

Abstract

We report a case of retroesophageal right subclavian artery identified in a 59-year-old Japanese female during routine dissection in Nagasaki University School of Medicine. This kind of variation is relatively rare; however, reports of such cases have accumulated. We paid attention to the intersegmental arteries and above all, the second intercostal artery. On the other hand, there have been reports of a retroesophageal right vertebral artery, although such cases are extremely rare.It is considered that both retroesophageal arteries are formed by similar mechanisms. In other words, the distal part of the right dorsal aorta remained in such cases. However, in the case of a retroesophageal right vertebral artery, there might be the possibility of intercostal arteries developing into the vertebral artery.We discuss such points.

Analysis of the regional anatomy of the retro-oesophageal right subclavian artery and surrounding structures

“…2, 3, 4 mentioned above. The observation in another study also revealed a similar pattern regarding the right vertebral artery arising from the RRSA [23]. Because the number of the bodies analysed is rather small, it is uncertain whether disappearance of the fourth aortic arch, as suggested by the present case, is the dominant form of the RRSA.…”

“…Aberrant right subclavian artery (ARSA), also named the arteria lusoria, is an embryologically derived rare variations of aortic arch branching that arises directly from the aortic arch as fourth branch. The reported incidence of ARSA ranges from 0.2% to 1.6% in Japanese [2,9,10,13,14,23,26] and 0.2% to 4.4% of population in other countries [1, 3-5, 7, 11, 12, 15, 19-22, 24, 25, 27, 28]. The retro-oesophageal right subclavian artery (RRSA) is one of the variations of ARSA.…”

The retroesophageal right subclavian artery – A case report and review –

“…Takemura (1979) 8) , Kitamura (1980) 13) , Emura (1988) 14) , Takemura (1990) 9) , Rahman (1993) 10) , and Kawashima (2001) 15) have reported 1 case of Type 1 respectively. Fujimoto (1963) 3) , Okumura (1974) 12) , and Okamoto (2013) 17) have reported 1 case of Type 2 respectively. Kawai (2011) 16) has reported 2 Type 1 cases, 2 Type 3 cases, and 1 Type 2 case.…”