Relationship between the coronary arteries and the aortic arches. Study done in sharks

  • Dr Joćo Saba, FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF SAO PAULO/UNIFESP, Brazil
  • Dr Celia Maria Silva, FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF SAO PAULO/UNIFESP, Brazil
  • Dr Antonio Carlos Carvalho, FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF SAO PAULO/UNIFESP, Brazil
  • Carlos Bernini Kapins, Escola Paulista de Medicina - UNIFESP - SP, Brazil
  • Dr Jose Carlos Prates, Brazil
  • Taking into account that the origin the coronary arteries from the pulmonary artery we made a hypothesis that the coronary arteries could be the last pair of aortic arches connected with the Pulmonary trunk (6th aortic arch, throughout a ductus, which we called as coronary ductus. These observations was taken from the knowledge of the existence of a shark that have seven branchias and also seven branchial arches(heptranchias perlo.We decided to study the coronary system of the sharks and its relations with the aorta and the branchial arches.The connections between the coronary arteries to the aorta in the embryological life still not yet completely understood.Our study was carried out with injections of contrast media into the aorta and coronary arteries of 16 shark’s head sectioned at the inferior level of the last branchia,all of them with five branchias. We concluded that there was a clear relation with the coronary arteries and the branchial arches, and we do not find connections between the coronary arteries and the ascending aorta maybe because in that vessel only run venous blood. We were not able to prove that the coronary arteries were the last pair of the aortic arches because we never found connections of these arteries with the descending aorta. We still having doubts why when the coronary arteries arise from the pulmonary trunk, in generally they arise beyond the valve sinus, going into the opposite of the embryological theory of the connection of the coronary vessels with the aortics sinus.