Variations in the Drainage Pattern of Testicular and Renal Veins, and Bilateral Duplication of Renal Arteries with Prehilar Divisions

Abstract

The dissection of a 76-year-old male donor with a consent for research and publication, revealed variations of the renal and testicular vasculature where the right testicular vein joined a right accessory renal vein to form a common trunk that opened into the right renal vein. The left renal vein descended obliquely to the left ventral to the pair of left renal arteries, under crossed the prehilar branches of the arteries dorsally as it approaches the left kidney and entered the hilum posterior to the arterial branches. Both kidneys were supplied by two renal arteries (superior and inferior). The left superior renal artery followed the course of the left renal vein, crossed inferiorly ventral to the inferior renal artery, and then the last part of the left renal vein to enter the lower corner of the hilum of the left kidney. The bilaterally duplicated renal arteries broke up into anterior and posterior prehilar (early) divisions that entered the respective kidney. The co-occurrence of such multiple and complex a variation is of nephron-urological importance and can complicate nephro-surgeries, interventional radiologic procedures and the management of abdominal aortic aneurysm.