Case Report
A 45-year-old male with recent anterior wall infarction underwent coronary angiogram. His left coronary system showed insignificant stenosis with thrombus. Incidentally, the right coronary artery revealed a branch arising from the posterolateral left ventricular branch of right coronary artery (RCA) and anastomosing with the sinus nodal artery arising from the proximal RCA. This anastomosis gave a Valentines shaped heart to the coronary artery (Figure 1). This branch arising from distal RCA in the region of atrioventricular nodal artery has also been called “right posterior” sinus nodal artery. This dual blood supply SA node makes it relatively resistant to ischaemia.
Figure 1.
Right coronary angiogram demonstrating the communication between posterolateral LV branch of right coronary artery and SA nodal artery. This collateral circulation gives a heart shaped appearance to the right coronary circulation.
Funding/Potential Competing Interests
No financial support and no other potential conflict of interest relevant to this article were reported.
References
- Gavaliatsis, I.P. “Right posterior” sinus node artery. Int J Cardiol. 2000, 75, 301–303. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
© 2012 by the author. Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivatives 4.0.