Type:
Educational Exhibit
Keywords:
Haemorrhage, Normal variants, Localisation, CT, Mediastinum, Lung, Anatomy
Authors:
P. Malkowski; Warszawa/PL
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2012/C-1327
Background
The blood supply of lungs comes from two different vascular systems: pulmonary arteries and systemic arteries.
The systemic supply of the lungs is evanescent and variable.
It is composed mainly of bronchial arteries,
but in some circumstances other arteries may transfer systemic blood into the lungs.
Although the systemic supply is responsible only for 1% of the blood flow,
the advance in interventional treatment of haemoptysis showed that it is the most frequent culprit.
Furthermore,
good preoperative knowledge about the anatomy of bronchial arteries in patients with oesophageal cancer allows a surgeon to preserve them and prevent a potentially fatal complication such as necrosis of the tracheal wall.