Origin and distribution of the coronary arteries of boars

Abstract

The heart of a domestic swine is similar to that of a human regarding anatomy, blood perfusion, and distribution of nurturing arteries. In addition to the similarities, its low cost compared with other species is also one of the reasons these animals have been increasingly used in medical schools and in clinical, surgical, and pharmacological studies. Therefore, we aimed to identify the origin and distribution of the right and left coronary arteries of boars, emphasizing the configuration and macroscopic representativity of their branches while characterizing a possible dominance concerning the type of circulation and the potential use of this animal as an experimental model, hence boars are the ancestors of the domestic pigs. The left coronary artery has bifurcated into paraconal interventricular branch and circumflex branch; or it has trifurcated into paraconal interventricular branch, the oblique branch, and into the left circumflex branch. The right coronary artery has originated the marginal branches to the right ventricle and the right circumflex branch, which has branched out in the subsinuous interventricular branch. Anastomoses have stood out among the paraconal and subsinuous interventricular branches – where a right dominant coronary artery occurred – and between the right and left circumflex branches. We concluded that the morphology and the distribution of the coronary arteries of boars resemble those of a human and, thus, our results are useful for the conception of experimental hemodynamics and possible use as process models.