A thyroidea ima artery variation providing collateral circulation to the mediastinum.

The thyroidea ima artery (TIA) is a highly variable arterial deviation of the blood supply to the thyroid gland with critical implications for surgical neck procedures such as tracheostomy. Though relatively common in the population at large (~ 4%), most TIA variations are related to the origin of the artery and whether it emerges from the common sites of the brachiocephalic trunk, aortic arch, and right common carotid artery, or another more unique vessel-as opposed to its dispersion pattern. TIA variants generally supply the thyroid gland, occasionally co-occurring with absent thyroid arteries. Here, we report on a unique case of a four-pronged variation of the TIA discovered during an anatomy laboratory dissection of first-year medical students. This variant originated from the brachiocephalic trunk and had three branches terminating in the thyroid gland and a fourth branch traveling into the thorax to provide accessory circulation in the mediastinum. Specifically, small arterial branches from the inferior TIA branch supplied the anterior pericardium and surrounding adipose tissue, in addition to normal pericardiacophrenic circulation. We discuss the potential embryological and clinical relevance of this unique variation and voice further support for imaging as a requirement before surgical neck procedures to prevent catastrophic bleeding in the event of a TIA variant.

Non-invasive evaluation of the common carotid artery in normal adults using ultrasound radiofrequency data technology.

AIM: To evaluate the changes in CCA-IMT and vascular elasticity in healthy subjects in relation to age using radiofrequency data technology, to produce reference values for potential clinical applications. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The following variables were measured in 160 subjects using radiofrequency data techniques: CCA-IMT, carotid distensibility (CD), local pulse-wave velocity (PWVß), and stiffness (ß). The subjects were divided into four age groups (30-39, 40-49, 50-59, and 60-69 years), with 20 men and 20 women in each group. The above parameters were compared among the different age groups. RESULTS: CCA-IMT increased significantly with age (p<0.05). CD decreased significantly in the 40-49-years compared with the 30-39-years age group (p<0.05). PWVß showed a significant increase in the 30-39-, 40-49-, and 50-59-years age groups (p<0.05). ß increased significantly in the 50-59- compared with the 40-49-years age group (p<0.05). Compared with the 50-59-years age group, CD, PWVß, and ß showed no significant changes in the 60-69-years age group (p>0.05), with mean values of 329.39 ± 102.06 µm, 7.22 ± 1.91 m/s, and 10.04 ± 4.91, respectively. CONCLUSION: Ultrasound radiofrequency data technology provides a non-invasive method for quantitatively and accurately assessing increased CCA-IMT and reduced vascular elasticity in healthy subjects in different age groups. The reference values produced in this study will be useful in clinical practice.

A systematic classification of the left-sided aortic arch variants based on cadaveric studies' prevalence.

INTRODUCTION: Typical branching pattern of the left-sided aortic arch consists of the brachiocephalic trunk (BCT), the left common carotid artery (LCCA) and the left subclavian artery (LSA). Variant patterns have been associated with a broad spectrum of pathologies. The meticulous knowledge of potential aortic arch variants is of utmost importance to radiologists, interventional cardiologists, vascular and thoracic surgeons. The current systematic review collects all aortic arch branching patterns and their frequency as published by various cadaveric studies, calculates prevalence taking into account the gender and the different people background, as well. All extracted variant patterns are classified into types and subtypes according to the number of emerging (major and minor) branches (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) and to the prevalence they appear. In cases of similar prevalence, total cases were taken into consideration; otherwise the variants were classified under the title "other rare variants". METHODS: A systematic online search of PubMed and Google books databases was performed only in cadaveric studies. RESULTS: Twenty studies with typical (78% prevalence) and variable (22%) branching patterns were included. Types 3b, 2b, 4b, 1b and 5b had a prevalence of 81%, of 13%, of 5%, 0% and of 0%, respectively. Common variants were the brachiocephalico-carotid trunk (BCCT, 49% prevalence), the aberrant left vertebral artery (LVA, 41%) and the aberrant right subclavian artery (ARSA, 8%). LVA of aortic origin was detected in 32%, the bicarotid trunk (biCT) in 5% and the bi-BCT trunk in 3%. Thyroidea ima artery, a minor branch emerging from the aortic arch was found in 2%. Coexisted variants were detected in 4% (ARSA with a distinct RCCA and LCCA origin), in 3% (BCCT with a LVA of aortic origin), in 2% (ARSA with a biCT and a vertebrosubclavian trunk). CONCLUSION: No significant gender or ethnic differences exist among the 5 branching types. The proposed classification scheme aims to become a valuable and easy to use tool in the hands of all physicians involved in diagnosis and treatment of aortic arch pathology. It could be also useful in anatomical education, as well.

Fully Automatic Measurement of Intima-Media Thickness in Ultrasound Images of the Common Carotid Artery Based on Improved Otsu's Method and Adaptive Wind Driven Optimization.

The intima media thickness (IMT) of the common carotid artery (CCA) can be used to predict the risk of atherosclerosis. Many image segmentation techniques have been used for IMT measurement. However, severe noise in the ultrasound image can lead to erroneous segmentation results. To improve the robustness to noise, a fully automatic method, based on an improved Otsu's method and an adaptive wind-driven optimization technique, is proposed for estimating the IMT (denoted as "improved Otsu-AWDO"). First, an advanced despeckling filter, i.e., " Nagare's filter" is used to address the speckle noise in the carotid ultrasound images. Next, an improved fuzzy contrast method (IFC) is used to enhance the region of the intima media complex (IMC) in the blurred filtered images. Then, a new method is used for automatic extraction of the region of interest (ROI). Finally, the lumen intima interface and media adventitia interface are segmented from the IMC using improved Otsu-AWDO. Then, 156 B-mode longitudinal carotid ultrasound images of six different datasets are used to evaluate the performance of the automatic measurements. The results indicate that the absolute error of proposed method is only 10.1 ± 9.6 (mean ± std in µm). Moreover, the proposed method has a correlation coefficient as high as 0.9922, and a bias as low as 0.0007. From comparison with previous methods, we can conclude that the proposed method has strong robustness and can provide accurate IMT estimations.

An unusual origin and course of the thyroidea ima artery, with absence of inferior thyroid artery bilaterally.

We report an unusual origin and course of the thyroidea ima artery in a male cadaver. The ima artery originated from the right subclavian artery very close to origin of the right vertebral artery. The artery coursed anteriorly between the common carotid artery medially and internal jugular vein laterally. It then coursed obliquely, from below upwards, from lateral to medial superficial to common carotid artery, to reach the inferior pole of the right lobe of thyroid and branched repeatedly to supply the anteroinferior and posteroinferior aspects of both the thyroid lobes and isthmus. The superior thyroid arteries were normal. Both the inferior thyroid arteries were absent. The unusual feature of this thyroidea ima artery is its origin from the subclavian artery close to vertebral artery origin, the location being remarkably far-off from the usual near midline position, and the oblique and relatively superficial course. This report is a caveat to neck surgeons to consider such a superficially running vessel to be a thyroidea ima artery.

Common left carotid bifurcation at C7-Th1 level: a rare anatomical variant.

The left common carotid artery usually bifurcates to the internal and external carotids at or near the superior border of thyroid cartilage. In head and neck surgery, the common carotid arteries are important landmarks, defining the plane of dissection during radical neck surgeries. According to the literature, many variations exist regarding the carotid bifurcation. Anatomical knowledge of these variants is important for surgical approaches in the head and neck regions, to avoid devastating complications that may occur, mainly during anterior neck dissections. We report an interesting case of a 75-year-old male patient with low bifurcation of the left common carotid artery, accidentally found during a routine carotid Doppler ultrasonography. Bifurcation was located at the C7-Th1 intervertebral disc height, approximately 4 cm from the aortic arch.

Analysis of Dynamic Geometric Configuration of the Aortic Channel from the Perspective of Tornado-Like Flow Organization of Blood Flow.

Analysis of the data of morphometry of aortic casts, aortography at different pressures, and multispiral computer tomography of the aorta with contrast and normal pulse pressure showed that geometric configuration of the flow channel of the aorta during the whole cardiac cycle corresponded to the conditions of self-organization of tornado-like quasipotential flow described by exact solutions of the Navier-Stokes equation and continuity of viscous fluid typical for this type of fluid flows. Increasing pressure in the aorta leads to a decrease in the degree of approximation of the channel geometry to the ratio of exact solution and increases the risk of distortions in the structure of the flow. A mechanism of evolution of tornado-like flow in the aorta was proposed.

Quantification of common carotid artery and descending aorta vessel wall thickness from MR vessel wall imaging using a fully automated processing pipeline.

PURPOSE: To develop and evaluate a method that can fully automatically identify the vessel wall boundaries and quantify the wall thickness for both common carotid artery (CCA) and descending aorta (DAO) from axial magnetic resonance (MR) images. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 3T MRI data acquired with T1 -weighted gradient-echo black-blood imaging sequence from carotid (39 subjects) and aorta (39 subjects) were used to develop and test the algorithm. The vessel wall segmentation was achieved by respectively fitting a 3D cylindrical B-spline surface to the boundaries of lumen and outer wall. The tube-fitting was based on the edge detection performed on the signal intensity (SI) profile along the surface normal. To achieve a fully automated process, Hough Transform (HT) was developed to estimate the lumen centerline and radii for the target vessel. Using the outputs of HT, a tube model for lumen segmentation was initialized and deformed to fit the image data. Finally, lumen segmentation was dilated to initiate the adaptation procedure of outer wall tube. The algorithm was validated by determining: 1) its performance against manual tracing; 2) its interscan reproducibility in quantifying vessel wall thickness (VWT); 3) its capability of detecting VWT difference in hypertensive patients compared with healthy controls. Statistical analysis including Bland-Altman analysis, t-test, and sample size calculation were performed for the purpose of algorithm evaluation. RESULTS: The mean distance between the manual and automatically detected lumen/outer wall contours was 0.00 ± 0.23/0.09 ± 0.21 mm for CCA and 0.12 ± 0.24/0.14 ± 0.35 mm for DAO. No significant difference was observed between the interscan VWT assessment using automated segmentation for both CCA (P = 0.19) and DAO (P = 0.94). Both manual and automated segmentation detected significantly higher carotid (P = 0.016 and P = 0.005) and aortic (P < 0.001 and P = 0.021) wall thickness in the hypertensive patients. CONCLUSION: A reliable and reproducible pipeline for fully automatic vessel wall quantification was developed and validated on healthy volunteers as well as patients with increased vessel wall thickness. This method holds promise for helping in efficient image interpretation for large-scale cohort studies. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 4 J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2017;45:215-228.

Anatomic variations of neck vessels and the course of pediatric internal jugular veins.

BACKGROUND: Landmark-guided internal jugular vein cannulation is difficult for pediatric patients but useful, especially when ultrasound equipment is unavailable. Therefore, it is important to define the adjacent anatomic characteristics of the pediatric internal jugular vein. METHODS: In 210 children the course of the internal jugular vein, and common carotid and vertebral arteries was measured from the level of the cricoid cartilage to the supraclavicular area using ultrasound. RESULTS: From the level of the cricoid cartilage to the supraclavicular area, vessel diameter increased with internal jugular vein increasing by 12%, and common carotid and vertebral arteries increasing by 5% each. From the level of the cricoid cartilage to the supraclavicular area, the number of patients with a medial common carotid artery position relative to the internal jugular vein increased, whereas those with a lateral position decreased; the number of patients with nonoverlapped common carotid artery-internal jugular vein increased, and those with totally overlapped decreased. In contrast, the overlapping status of vertebral artery-internal jugular vein changes oppositely. More than 97.14% of the vertebral artery lies lateral to the internal jugular vein at these levels. The minimal vertebral artery-internal jugular vein depth decreased from 0.46±0.20 to 0.37±0.19 cm. The angle from the internal jugular vein line to the horizontal line of the body was 83.35±9.04 degrees. CONCLUSION: The common carotid artery and internal jugular vein are farther apart as one moves down the neck, whereas the vertebral artery and internal jugular vein are getting together. Additionally, the diameter of the internal jugular vein increased.

Unilateral occurrence of five different thyroid arteries-a need of terminological systematization: a case report.

This article highlights an unusual and unilateral variation in the blood supply to the inferior portion of the thyroid gland observed on the right lobe during anatomy dissection course. The rare variation of the occurrence of two anomalous arteries: the middle thyroid artery and the aberrant accessory inferior thyroid artery, and one uncommon variant, the thyroid ima artery, was detected in an adult female cadaver. The two generally constant arteries, the superior thyroid artery and the inferior thyroid artery, have been found in their usual anatomical location. Both the middle thyroid artery and aberrant accessory inferior thyroid artery arose from the right common carotid artery. The middle thyroid artery coursed as a very short branch ventromedially to enter the inferior lateral portion of the right lobe of the thyroid gland. It was at the same level, in which the inferior thyroid artery reached the lateral border of the thyroid gland. The aberrant accessory inferior thyroid artery originated similarly, from the ventromedial surface of the right common carotid artery and passed to supply the inferior pole of the right lobe. The thyroid ima artery was found to arise from the brachiocephalic trunk, entering the isthmus of the thyroid gland. Information about the embryological background might be helpful to clarify why such a type of variation occurs. It is necessary to understand the possible existence of this anomaly, to carry out successful radical neck dissection and to minimize the risk of postoperative complications in patients.

Initial Experience With the Pediatric Impella Device: A Feasibility Study in a Porcine Model.

OBJECTIVE: This study's objective was to evaluate insertion techniques and device fit of the pediatric version of the Impella ventricular assist device in swine which had similar sized carotids and left ventricles (LVs) as children weighing 10-20 kg. BACKGROUND: Options for minimally invasive circulatory support in children are limited. A modified device based on the current Impella 2.5 platform was created in an effort to provide minimally invasive circulatory support for children. METHODS: Animal studies (n = 10) were performed to determine technical feasibility of device implant via the right common carotid artery (RCCA) in swine with a carotid and LV size similar to children with a BSA < 1 m2 and weight 10-20 kg. The RCCA diameter was measured on pre-implant ultrasound and the LV length was measured at necropsy. The animals were supported for 4 hr and the device explanted. Blood samples and post-explant necropsy was performed to evaluate for device related complications. RESULTS: All animals underwent successful device insertion. Mean carotid artery diameter by ultrasound was 3.5 ± 0.3 mm. There was no LV or aortic/mitral valve damage with a minimum LV length of 5.4 cm. CONCLUSIONS: Minimally invasive circulatory support is needed in small children. Limitations are primarily related to vessel and chamber size. The Impella Pediatric catheter was safely and successfully implanted in carotid arteries similar in size to children weighing 10-20 kg with minimal complications. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Repeated Loading Behavior of Pediatric Porcine Common Carotid Arteries.

Rapid flexion and extension of the neck may occur during scenarios associated with traumatic brain injury (TBI), and understanding the mechanical response of the common carotid artery (CCA) to longitudinal stretch may enhance understanding of contributing factors that may influence CCA vasospasm and exacerbate ischemic injury associated with TBI. Immature (4-week-old) porcine CCAs were tested under subcatastrophic (1.5 peak stretch ratio) cyclic loading at 3 Hz for 30 s. Under subcatastrophic cyclic longitudinal extension, the immature porcine CCA displays softening behavior. This softening can be represented by decreasing peak stress and increasing corner stretch values with an increasing number of loading cycles. This investigation is an important first step in the exploration of fatiguelike behavior in arterial tissue that may be subjected to repeated longitudinal loads.

The airway device preference may affect the overlapping of the common carotid artery by the internal jugular vein.

BACKGROUND: Anatomical variation in the internal jugular vein (IJV), as well as its small size, tendency to collapse, and proximity to the common carotid artery (CCA) makes central venous cannulation via the IJV a technically challenging procedure, especially in pediatric patients. AIM: We evaluated the effects of laryngeal mask airway insertion and endotracheal intubation (ETT) on the anatomical relationship between the IJV and the CCA in neutral and 40° head away positions. METHOD: After parental consent 92 patients with ASA physical status I-II, aged 0-17, undergoing elective urological surgery were enrolled and divided into two groups according to the airway management device used for anesthesia: Group laryngeal mask airway (n = 63) and Group ETT (n = 29). An ultrasonographic evaluation was performed before and after airway instrumentation at neutral and 40° head rotation. The IJV position in relation to the CCA was noted, and the overlap percentage of the CCA was calculated as the ratio of the CCA length covering by the internal jugular vein to the transverse diameter of the CCA. RESULTS: With no airway device insertion, the position of the IJV was found to be anterolateral to the CCA in the majority of patients (48.8% vs 35.3%, right vs left IJV) in the neutral head position. While there was no significant change in the overlap percentages of the CCA after laryngeal mask airway insertion in the neutral head position [48.71% vs 57.30% for the right IJV (difference in median: -21.20; 95% confidence interval (CI) of difference: -56.92 to 14.52; P = 0.133); 52.54% vs 60.36% for the left IJV (difference in median: -10.3; 95% CI of difference: -41.49 to 20.89; P = 0.128)], it increased significantly in the 40° head away position on both sides [50.11% vs 64.83% for the right IJV (difference in median: -55; 95% CI of difference: -84 to -25.24; P = 0.01); 53.82% vs 71.20% for the left IJV (difference in median: -46; 95% CI of difference: -86.85 to -5.15; P = 0.004)]. However, the overlap percentages of CCA decreased significantly on the right side with patients in a neutral head position (31.23% vs 6.27%, difference in median: 19; 95% CI of difference: -5.68 to 43.68; P = 0.002) and on both sides in the 40° head away position [29.50% vs 16.19%, difference in median: 26; 95% CI of difference: 2.84 to 49.16; P = 0.03 and 47% vs 31.94%, difference in median: 9.50; 95% CI of difference: -40.87 to 59.87; P = 0.03 for the right and left sides, respectively] after ETT insertion. CONCLUSIONS: Laryngeal mask airway with 40° head rotation increases, whereas ETT decreases, the overlap percentage of CCA by IJV. Both head position and airway management methods have an influence on the overlap of the CCA by the IJV in pediatric patients.

Lateral Position of the External Carotid Artery: A Rare Variation to Be Recognized During Carotid Endarterectomy.

BACKGROUND: External carotid artery (ECA) positioned laterally to the internal carotid artery (ICA) at the level of the common carotid artery (CCA) bifurcation is occasionally encountered during carotid endarterectomy (CEA). This study aimed to determine the frequency of this phenomenon and provide technical tips for performing CEA. METHODS: The study included 199 consecutive patients (209 carotid arteries) who underwent CEA at Otaru Municipal Medical Center in 2007-2014. The position of the ECA with respect to the ICA at the CCA bifurcation was preoperatively rated as either lateral or normal, using three-dimensional computerized tomographic angiography (3-D CTA) anteroposterior projections. Postoperative diffusion-weighted images (DWIs), and postoperative 3-D CTA images were reviewed. RESULTS: Among the 209 carotid arteries with atherosclerosis, 11 instances (5.3 %) of lateral position of the ECA were detected in 11 patients. Ten of these arteries (91 %) were right-sided (odds ratio 11.1; 95 % confidence interval 1.38-88.9). Wider longitudinal exposure of the arteries was used during CEA, and the CCA and ECA were rotated clockwise or counter clockwise. The ICA lying behind the ECA along the surgical access route was then pulled out laterally and moved to the shallow surgical field. Cross-clamping, arteriotomy, plaque removal, and wall suturing were performed as usual. No cerebral infarcts were detected on postoperative DWIs, and 3-D CTA revealed no CCA and ICA kinking. CONCLUSIONS: Lateral position of the ECA is not extremely rare in patients undergoing CEA for atherosclerosis and may be a congenital variation, although this is still controversial. CEA can be performed safely if the arteries from the CCA to the ICA are rotated, and the ICA is moved to the shallow surgical field under wider longitudinal exposure. Although no postoperative cerebral infarcts were detected, the risk of artery-to-artery embolism resulting from artery repositioning prior to plaque removal should be taken into consideration.

Phase contrast MRI with flow compensation view sharing.

PURPOSE: To develop and evaluate a technique for accelerating phase contrast MRI (PC-MRI) acquisitions without significant compromise in flow quantification accuracy. METHODS: PC-MRI is commonly acquired using interleaved flow-compensated (FC) and flow-encoded (FE) echoes. We hypothesized that FC data, which represent background phase, do not change significantly over time. Therefore, we proposed to undersample the FC data and use an FC view sharing (FCVS) approach to synthesize a composite FC frame for each corresponding FE frame. FCVS was evaluated in a flow phantom and healthy volunteers and compared with a standard FC/FE PC-MRI. RESULTS: The FCVS sequence resulted in an error of 0.0% for forward flow and 2.0% for reverse flow volume when compared with FC/FE PC-MRI in a flow phantom. Measurements in the common carotid arteries showed that the FCVS method had -1.16 cm/s bias for maximum peak velocity and -0.019 mL bias in total flow, when compared with FC/FE with the same temporal resolution, but double the total acquisition time. These results represent ≤1.3% bias error in velocity and volumetric flow quantification. CONCLUSION: FCVS can accelerate PC-MRI acquisitions while maintaining flow and velocity measurement accuracy when there is limited temporal variation in the FC data.

Carotid-wall intima-media thickness and cardiovascular events.

BACKGROUND: Intima-media thickness of the walls of the common carotid artery and internal carotid artery may add to the Framingham risk score for predicting cardiovascular events. METHODS: We measured the mean intima-media thickness of the common carotid artery and the maximum intima-media thickness of the internal carotid artery in 2965 members of the Framingham Offspring Study cohort. Cardiovascular-disease outcomes were evaluated for an average follow-up of 7.2 years. Multivariable Cox proportional-hazards models were generated for intima-media thickness and risk factors. We evaluated the reclassification of cardiovascular disease on the basis of the 8-year Framingham risk score category (low, intermediate, or high) after adding intima-media thickness values. RESULTS: A total of 296 participants had a cardiovascular event. The risk factors of the Framingham risk score predicted these events, with a C statistic of 0.748 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.719 to 0.776). The adjusted hazard ratio for cardiovascular disease with a 1-SD increase in the mean intima-media thickness of the common carotid artery was 1.13 (95% CI, 1.02 to 1.24), with a nonsignificant change in the C statistic of 0.003 (95% CI, 0.000 to 0.007); the corresponding hazard ratio for the maximum intima-media thickness of the internal carotid artery was 1.21 (95% CI, 1.13 to 1.29), with a modest increase in the C statistic of 0.009 (95% CI, 0.003 to 0.016). The net reclassification index increased significantly after addition of intima-media thickness of the internal carotid artery (7.6%, P<0.001) but not intima-media thickness of the common carotid artery (0.0%, P=0.99). With the presence of plaque, defined as intima-media thickness of the internal carotid artery of more than 1.5 mm, the net reclassification index was 7.3% (P=0.01), with an increase in the C statistic of 0.014 (95% CI, 0.003 to 0.025). CONCLUSIONS: The maximum internal and mean common carotid-artery intima-media thicknesses both predict cardiovascular outcomes, but only the maximum intima-media thickness of (and presence of plaque in) the internal carotid artery significantly (albeit modestly) improves the classification of risk of cardiovascular disease in the Framingham Offspring Study cohort. (Funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.).

Arterial supply to the thyroid gland and the relationship between the recurrent laryngeal nerve and the inferior thyroid artery in human fetal cadavers.

The aim of this study was to identify the arterial supply to the thyroid gland and the relationship between the inferior thyroid artery (ITA) and the recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) in fetal cadavers using anatomical dissection. The anterior necks of 200 fetuses were dissected. The origins of the superior thyroid artery (STA) and the ITA and location of the ITA in relation to the entrance of the thyroid lobe were examined. The relationship between the ITA and the RLN was determined. The origins of the STA were classified as: external carotid artery, common carotid artery (CCA), and the thyrolingual trunk. The origins of the ITA were the thyrocervical trunk and the CCA. The ITA was absent on the left side in two cases. The relationship of the RLN to the ITA fell into seven different types. Type 1: the RLN lay posterior to the artery; right (42.5%), left (65%). Type 2: the RLN lay anterior to the artery; right (40.5%), left (22.5%). Type 3: the RLN lay parallel to the artery; right (11.5%), left (7%). Type 4: the RLN lay between the two branches of the artery; right (1%), left (3.5%). Type 5: The extralaryngeal branch of the RLN was detected before it crossed the ITA; right (4.5%), left (0%). Type 6: the ITA lay between the two branches of the RLN; right (0%), left (0.5%). Type 7: the branches of the RLN lay among the branches of the ITA; right (0%), left (0.5%). The results from this study would be useful in future thyroid surgeries.

Bilateral aberrant origin of the inferior thyroid artery from the common carotid artery.

The thyroid gland is mainly supplied by the superior and inferior thyroid arteries, with the latter being its principal arterial supply in adults. The inferior thyroid artery usually arises from the thyrocervical trunk, and less frequently from the subclavian artery. Rarely, it may originate from the vertebral artery or the common carotid artery. In the present report, we describe a unique case of a 56-year-old patient, undergoing total thyroidectomy and level VI lymph node dissection for papillary thyroid carcinoma, with aberrant origin of both inferior thyroid arteries from the common carotid arteries.

Morphology of the aortic arch branching pattern in raccoon dogs (Nyctereutes procyonoides, Gray, 1834).

BACKGROUND: Aortic arch (AA) branching patterns vary among different mammalian species. Most previous studies have focused on dogs, whereas those on raccoon dogs remain unexplored. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to describe the AA branching pattern in raccoon dogs and compare their morphological features with those of other carnivores. METHODS: We prepared silicone cast specimens from a total of 36 raccoon dog carcasses via retrograde injection through the abdominal aorta. The brachiocephalic trunk (BCT) branching patterns were classified based on the relationship between the left and right common carotid arteries. The subclavian artery (SB) branching pattern was examined based on the order of the four major branches: the vertebral artery (VT), costocervical trunk (CCT), superficial cervical artery (SC), and internal thoracic artery (IT). RESULTS: In most cases (88.6%), the BCT branched off from the left common carotid artery and terminated in the right common carotid and right subclavian arteries. In the remaining cases (11.4%), the BCT formed a bicarotid trunk. The SB exhibited various branching patterns, with 26 observed types. Based on the branching order of the four major branches, we identified the main branching pattern, in which the VT branched first (98.6%), the CCT branched second (81.9%), the SC branched third (62.5%), and the IT branched fourth (52.8%). CONCLUSIONS: The AA branching pattern in raccoon dogs exhibited various branching patterns with both similarities and differences compared to other carnivores.

Multilattice sampling strategies for region of interest dynamic MRI.

A multilattice sampling approach is proposed for dynamic MRI with Cartesian trajectories. It relies on the use of sampling patterns composed of several different lattices and exploits an image model where only some parts of the image are dynamic, whereas the rest is assumed static. Given the parameters of such an image model, the methodology followed for the design of a multilattice sampling pattern adapted to the model is described. The multi-lattice approach is compared to single-lattice sampling, as used by traditional acceleration methods such as UNFOLD (UNaliasing by Fourier-Encoding the Overlaps using the temporal Dimension) or k-t BLAST, and random sampling used by modern compressed sensing-based methods. On the considered image model, it allows more flexibility and higher accelerations than lattice sampling and better performance than random sampling. The method is illustrated on a phase-contrast carotid blood velocity mapping MR experiment. Combining the multilattice approach with the KEYHOLE technique allows up to 12× acceleration factors. Simulation and in vivo undersampling results validate the method. Compared to lattice and random sampling, multilattice sampling provides significant gains at high acceleration factors.