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Gross anatomical study on the human myocardial bridges with special reference to the spatial relationship among coronary arteries, cardiac veins, and autonomic nerves
Author(s) -
Watanabe Yuko,
Arakawa Takamitsu,
Kageyama Ikuo,
Aizawa Yukio,
Kumaki Katsuji,
Miki Akinori,
Terashima Toshio
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
clinical anatomy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.667
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1098-2353
pISSN - 0897-3806
DOI - 10.1002/ca.22662
Subject(s) - medicine , coronary arteries , cardiology , gross anatomy , anatomy , autonomic nervous system , artery , blood pressure , heart rate
Coronary arteries are frequently covered by cardiac muscles. This arrangement is termed a myocardial bridge. Previous studies have shown that myocardial bridges can cause myocardial ischemic diseases or cardiac arrhythmia, but the relevant pathogenic mechanisms remain unknown. We examined 60 hearts from Japanese cadavers macroscopically to clarify the spatial relationships among coronary arteries, cardiac veins and autonomic nerves. We found 86 myocardial bridges in 47 hearts from the 60 cadavers examined (78.3%). Next, we dissected out nine hearts with myocardial bridges in detail under the operating microscope. We found no additional branches of coronary arteries on the myocardial bridge surfaces. However, the cardiac veins, which usually accompany the coronary arteries, ran independently on the myocardial bridge surfaces in the same region. Cardiac autonomic nerves comprised two rami: one was associated with the coronary artery under the myocardial bridge and the other ran on the surface of the bridge. Such spatial relationships among the coronary arteries, cardiac veins and cardiac autonomic nerves at the myocardial bridges are quite similar to those in mouse embryo hearts. Clin. Anat. 29:333–341, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.