Vol. 129 No. 1 (2025)
Original Article

A case report of the right vertebral artery’s origin as a unique ‘trifurcation’ involving the brachiocephalic trunk, right common carotid artery, and the right vertebral artery

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  • Cheryl Melovitz-Vasan,
  • Susan Huff,
  • Nagaswami Vasan
Cheryl Melovitz-Vasan
Department of Biomedical Sciences, Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, Camden, New Jersey, 08103 USA
Susan Huff
Medical Education Research Collaborator, Winston-Salem, NC, USA
Nagaswami Vasan
Department of Biomedical Sciences, Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, 401 South Broadway, Camden, New Jersey 08103, USA
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/ijae-15808

Published 2025-07-10

Keywords

  • anomalous origin of right vertebral artery,
  • right vertebral artery origin as a ‘trifurcation’,
  • dilatation at the proximal and distal end of the right vertebral artery

How to Cite

Melovitz-Vasan, C., Huff, S., & Vasan, N. (2025). A case report of the right vertebral artery’s origin as a unique ‘trifurcation’ involving the brachiocephalic trunk, right common carotid artery, and the right vertebral artery. Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology, 129(1), 41–45. https://doi.org/10.36253/ijae-15808

Copyright (c) 2025 Cheryl Melovitz-Vasan, Susan Huff, Nagaswami Vasan

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

While the anomalous origin of the left vertebral artery is more often reported, the atypical right vertebral artery arising from the aortic arch is sparsely recognized. During the dissection of a donor’s body, we recognized that the right vertebral artery arose as a ‘trifurcation’ from the aortic arch distal to the right subclavian artery. Intrigued, we explored the arterial branching further to realize a unique pattern not seen in earlier reports. The trifurcation involved the brachiocephalic trunk, right common carotid, and right vertebral artery. It is essential to recognize the possibility of people living normally without symptoms due to some anomalous arterial pattern.

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