Variations of the hepatic and cystic arteries among Ethiopians.

The anatomy of the hepatic and cystic arteries were investigated in 110 postmortem and cadaveric subjects. The right hepatic artery took origin from the proper hepatic artery (66.3%), the common hepatic artery (18.2%), the superior mesenteric artery (8.2%) or the celiac trunk (7.3%). Ten cases of accessory right hepatic artery originating from the superior mesenteric artery (7 cases), gastroduodenal artery (2 cases) or the left hepatic artery (1 case) were observed. The origin of the left hepatic artery included the proper hepatic artery (71.8%), the common hepatic artery (16.4%), the celiac trunk (10.9%) and the splenic artery (0.9%). The 14 cases of accessory left hepatic arteries originated from the common hepatic artery (5 cases), right hepatic artery (3 cases), gastroduodenal artery (2 cases) or the celiac trunk (4 cases). An extrahepatic branch to the quadrate lobe of the liver, also known as the middle hepatic artery, was observed in 47.3% arising mainly from the right or left hepatic arteries (20% each), the superior mesenteric artery (2.7%) and from the gastroduodenal artery (4.6%). The cystic artery mainly arose from the right hepatic artery (75.5%) but also took origin from the middle hepatic artery (12.7%), gastroduodenal artery (7.3%) or the left hepatic artery (4.5%). When the cystic artery is to the left of the common hepatic artery at its origin (39.1%), it crossed from left to right anterior to the common hepatic duct (28.2%) or posterior to the duct (10.9%). Irrespective of its relationship with the common hepatic duct, the cystic artery passed in the triangle of Calot in 89 cases. There were 11 accessory cystic arteries arising from the right hepatic (6 cases), the middle hepatic (3 cases) or the left hepatic arteries (2 cases). Arterial variations seen in the present study were significantly higher (p < 0.05) than that reported in the literature. This was mainly due to the variations seen in origin of the right hepatic artery in the female subjects which was significantly higher (p < 0.05) than in the male subjects. The significance of this finding needs further investigation.