Corona Mortis: Surgical Anatomy, Physiology and Clinical Significance

Corona mortis (CM) is classically defined as the arterial anastomosis between the obturator artery and the inferior epigastric artery that crosses the posterior aspect of the superior ramus of the symphysis pubis. Its clinical impact is considered great, as it lies within the surgical field of numerous specialties (general surgeons, orthopedists, gynecologists, urologists). Our systematic study of the literature revealed a diversity in the incidence of the Corona Mortis between cadaveric and patient studies. The new technological advances and especially the CT angiography, applied on the retropubic region vessels, have given the chance to obtain more precise depictions and thus estimations on the real incidence of corona mortis. This review intends to extract for the first time the corona mortisrsquo incidence from the major CT angiographic studies in bibliography and compare it with the incidence of CM in the major cadaveric studies. Special attention was given to the question whether this anastomosis is that important as its name implies (mortis) in the clinical setting or not

Thoracic Outlet Syndrome: Historical Aspects of Anatomy and Physiology

Throughout the years complexes of symptoms of the upper extremity, caused by compression, were to be explained. Pain, paresthesia, edema, ischemia and motor dysfunction of the arm was and still is a diagnostic problem. From the start many separated syndromes have been developed in order to explain the patientrsquos problems which at the end came they all together to a nosological entity, the thoracic outlet compression syndrome (TOS). This paper reviews the evolution of the syndromes throughout the years and the historical landmarks that formed this multifactorial problem as we understand it today