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CASE REPORT
Incidental discovery of a new and clinically important anatomic variant of the internal thoracic artery in a young male trauma patient
  1. Kirsteen R. Burton1,
  2. Noah Ditkofsky1,2
  1. 1Medical Imaging, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  2. 2Medical Imaging, University of Toronto, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  1. Correspondence to Dr Kirsteen R. Burton, kirsteen.burton{at}utoronto.ca

Summary

The internal thoracic artery (ITA) is the largest thoracic wall artery and is clinically important primarily for use in coronary artery bypass grafting. A number of anatomic variants of the ITA have been reported; however, bilateral, aberrant lateral branches of the ITA never have. The importance of this finding lies in the positioning of the artery at a potential chest tube insertion site. Here, we report the identification, on CT scan, of this rare variation in a young male trauma patient.

  • radiology
  • cardiothoracic surgery
  • plastic and reconstructive surgery

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Footnotes

  • Contributors KRB and ND both contributed equally to the creation of this manuscript, specifically, to the conceptualisation, drafting and revision of this manuscript.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Patient consent Obtained.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.