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Description
A single coronary artery is a rare coronary anomaly in which only one coronary artery arises from the aortic trunk by a single ostium and supplies the entire myocardium. Although rare, reports about revascularisation of congenitally abnormal coronary vessels are present in the literature.1 We report a case of a 72-year-old man with previously unknown coronary anomaly presenting with acute inferior myocardial infarction.
The patient was admitted to the emergency room with typical chest pain at rest for 6 h. He was diagnosed as acute inferior myocardial infarction and coronary angiography was performed immediately. The left coronary artery ostium cannulation attempt failed. The right coronary artery (RCA) was cannulated with a right Judkins-guiding catheter. In the left anterior oblique cranial projection, the whole coronary system was visualised from a single ostium, located at the right sinus of Valsalva and giving off branches to the RCA and the left coronary system (figure 1). There was a thrombotic total occlusion in the proximal-portion of the RCA. There was an arterial collateral from left coronary system to RCA, which filled the distal part of the RCA anterogradely. The lesion was crossed with a 0.014-inch guidewire and a bare metal stent (3.5×16 mm) was implanted. Stenting of the occluded branch was performed successfully (figure 2). The patient was free from chest pain and discharged uneventfully. Single coronary artery anomalies are usually benign and asymptomatic. If a patient with single coronary artery anomaly has a heart attack, routine percutaneous intervention should be performed.
Demonstration of coronary arterial tree. The left coronary system arises from the proximal part of the right coronary artery (RCA). RCA is totally occluded in the proximal part and filling of the distal portion via collaterals from left coronary system is also seen.
Appearance of right coronary artery after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty.
Learning points
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A single coronary artery is a rare congenital anomaly, with an incidence of 0.02% in patients who undergo coronary angiography.2
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Lipton method is used for classification of single coronary artery according to the site of origin and anatomical distribution of the branches.3
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In patients who require emergency percutaneous interventions, presence of coronary anomalies should not cause doubt about the performance of the procedure and the intervention should be applied as soon as possible.
Footnotes
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Twitter Follow Ahmet Karagöz at @drahmetkgz
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Contributors AV and HA participated in the writing of the manuscript and performed the percutaneous intervention. AK and BD participated in interpreting the data, taking care of the patient and reviewing the literature.
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Competing interests None.
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Patient consent Obtained.
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Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.