Published in Scientific Works. Series C. Veterinary Medicine, Vol. LXI
Written by Aurel DAMIAN, Ioana D. CHIRILEAN, Florin G. STAN, Cristian C. DEZDROBITU, Cristian O. MARTONOS, Ionel PAPUC, Melania C. CRIȘAN, Irina IRIMESCU, Flaviu TUNS
Taking into consideration that literature asserts that pigs share common vascular and cardiac traits with humans and represent an important experimental animal model for research advances, our study addresses the need to establish if the subclavian arteries in pigs present intraspecific variations concerning their branching and topography. The study was performed using a research group of 12 carcasses of commercially slaughtered crossbreed adult pigs (7 males and 5 females), weighting between 80 and 110 kg, obtained from different breeders. We have performed a stratigraphic dissection using common techniques in order to access the heart and the origin of the main arterial vessels, followed by the injection of a colored plastic material (latex) in order to highlight the features found in the targeted arterial branching. After the injection, the dissected pieces were fixed by immersion in a 2% formaldehyde solution, for 48 hours, also allowing the colored latex to solidify. This permitted the completion of the dissection and a good examination of the arterial branching and of is topographic relations. Our results indicate that in pigs the right subclavian artery is a constant branch, which in swine emerges from the brachiocephalic trunk, while the left subclavian artery, also constant, detaches directly from the aortic arch. The caliber and lumenum of the right subclavian artery is significantly smaller by comparison to its left counterpart. None of the subjects sampled in our study presented the external thoracic artery as a branch of the subclavian arteries. Our results indicate that the subclavian arteries in pigs do not present the same intraspecific variety noted in human, which is can be accounted for by the significantly short life span of this species, due to commercial slaughter.
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