The lateral thoracic artery passing through duplicated axillary vein: A case report

The axillary vein is a large‐blood vessel that lies on the medial side to the axillary artery. The veins of the axilla are more abundant than the arteries and their variations were extremely common. During educational dissection, a rare form of the axillary vein accompanying arterial variation was founded in left arm of 70‐year‐old female cadaver. The axillary vein was divided into two large veins, anterior and posterior axillary veins according to their anatomical position. The lateral‐thoracic artery arose from the second part of the axillary artery and passed through the gap of duplicated axillary vein. Before the lateral‐thoracic artery passed through the gap of duplicated axillary vein, the lateral‐thoracic artery gave‐off an additional branch, which descended superficial to the anterior axillary vein. It surrounded the anterior axillary vein as annular form and the diameter of surrounded part of the anterior axillary vein became narrow. This novel case was reported and its clinical implications of such a variant were discussed. Clin. Anat. 26:1014–1016, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.