Congenital Coronary Blood Vessel Anomalies: Animal Models and the Integration of Developmental Mechanisms.

Coronary blood vessels are in charge of sustaining cardiac homeostasis. It is thus logical that coronary congenital anomalies (CCA) directly or indirectly associate with multiple cardiac conditions, including sudden death. The coronary vascular system is a sophisticated, highly patterned anatomical entity, and therefore a wide range of congenital malformations of the coronary vasculature have been described. Despite the clinical interest of CCA, very few attempts have been made to relate specific embryonic developmental mechanisms to the congenital anomalies of these blood vessels. This is so because developmental data on the morphogenesis of the coronary vascular system derive from complex studies carried out in animals (mostly transgenic mice), and are not often accessible to the clinician, who, in turn, possesses essential information on the significance of CCA. During the last decade, advances in our understanding of normal embryonic development of coronary blood vessels have provided insight into the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying coronary arteries anomalies. These findings are the base for our attempt to offer plausible embryological explanations to a variety of CCA as based on the analysis of multiple animal models for the study of cardiac embryogenesis, and present them in an organized manner, offering to the reader developmental mechanistic explanations for the pathogenesis of these anomalies.

Anomalías congénitas de arterias coronarias, estudio de aquellas con Importancia hemodinámica / Evaluation of the hemodynamically significant congenital anomalies of coronary arteries

Resumen: Las anomalías de las arterias coronarias son poco frecuentes, con una prevalencia de 0,21- 5,79%. Su presentación clínica es amplia, pudiendo ser asintomáticas o presentarse como isquemia miocárdica y muerte súbita, la que puede estar ligada o no al ejercicio. Existen varias clasificaciones, siendo las más usadas las que las agrupan desde un punto de vista anatómico en relación con el segmento afectado (origen, curso o terminación) y desde el punto de vista funcional (hemodinámicamente significativa y no significativa). Actualmente la Tomografía Computada Cardiaca se considera el estándar de referencia, siendo de suma importancia su adecuada caracterización ya que, de requerir tratamiento, este generalmente es quirúrgico. El objetivo de este trabajo es identificar, caracterizar y clasificar las anomalías congénitas de las arterias coronarias por su importancia hemodinámica mediante la presentación de casos clínicos y revisión de la literatura.

Abstract: Coronary artery anomalies are rare, with a prevalence ranging from 0.21 to 5.79%. Their clinical presentation is variable; being either asymptomatic or presenting as myocardial ischemia and sudden death, which may or may not be linked to exercise. There are several classifications, the most commonly used being those that sort them from an anatomical point of view in relation to the affected segment (origin, course or termination) and from a functional point of view (hemodynamically significant and not significant). Currently, Cardiac Computed Tomography is considered the reference standard allowing an adequate characterization of the anomaly, which is highly relevant since, if treatment is needed, it usually involves surgery. The purpose of this review is to identify, characterize and classify congenital anomalies of the coronary arteries according to their hemodynamic significance through the presentation of clinical cases and review of the literature.