An Anomalous Branching of Coeliac Trunk

Anatomical variations of the coeliac trunk are very common. A variation of coeliac trunk occurs due to the developmental abnormalities in the ventral splanchnic arteries. Present paper highlights a rare variation of branching pattern of coeliac trunk which was observed during routine dissection. In a 63 year old male cadaver, we observed a bifurcation of coeliac trunk into short hepato-splenic and longer hepato-gastric trunks. The hepato-splenic trunk divided into common hepatic artery and splenic artery. Cystic artery originated from proper hepatic artery and then proper hepatic artery divided into right and left hepatic arteries. Hepato-gastric trunk ran laterally and upward, and then it divided into two branches: a left gastric artery and left accessory hepatic artery. Knowledge of this rare variation is clinically very important for surgeons, especially while performing liver transplantation, gastric, gallbladder surgeries and transarterial chemoembolization for hepatic tumor and during invasive procedures like angiography and also other radiological studies.