ANTERIOR CEREBRAL–ANTERIOR COMMUNICATING COMPLEX IN THE POSTNATAL PERIOD: FROM A FENESTRATION TO THE MULTIPLICATION OF ARTERIES

Abstract

The anterior cerebral artery is a medial terminal branch of the cerebral part of the internal carotid artery on both sides. These paired arteries are connected by the anterior communicating artery. Different abnormalities of the anterior communicating–anterior cerebral arteries can include an aplasia or hypoplasia, or variable origin and/or course and/or termination, or fenestration, or duplication or multiplication or persistence of primitive or additional vessels. The aim of this manuscript was to investigate the relationships of morphological abnormalities of an anterior communicating–anterior cerebral complex in human adults of Serbian population. Material represented 266 human cadavers autopsied at the Institute for Forensic Medicine in Niš. Cerebral arteries were investigated macroscopically, under the glass; outer vessel’s diameter was measured using ImageJ processing program. A total of 87 cases or 32.71% of different abnormalities of the anterior communicating–anterior cerebral complex were found and classified into six groups. The group of duplications of the anterior communicating artery with an incidence of 18.04% was the most frequent. The finding of only four aneurysms on the anterior communicating artery indicates that there was no significant difference in the rate of aneurysms in individuals of Serbian population with and without fenestrations or duplications or multiplications of the anterior cerebral–anterior communicating complex.