Human coronary arteries. II. Branching anatomical pattern and arterial wall microarchitecture.

A study on 22 pairs, including subjects of similar age, sex and cause of death but with different branching anatomical patterns, shows, that the amount and structural organization of elastic and muscular tissue of the thickened intima are strongly influenced by (a) the size, length, mode of ramification of the parent vessels of the coronary tree; (b) the number of branch orifices in a given arterial segment, and (c) the collateral or terminal character of certain daughter branches.