[Skip to Navigation]
Article
January 1933

NOURISHMENT OF THE MYOCARDIUM THROUGH THEBESIAN VESSELS: IN A HEART IN WHICH THE LARGE CORONARY ARTERIES AND VEINS WERE DESTROYED BY TUBERCULOUS MYOCARDITIS

Author Affiliations

PHILADELPHIA

From the Division of Cardiology and Pathology of the Philadelphia General Hospital and the Robinette Foundation of the University of Pennsylvania.

Arch Intern Med (Chic). 1933;51(1):112-121. doi:10.1001/archinte.1933.00150200115010
Abstract

Interest in the thebesian vessels or sinusoids has been renewed to a considerable degree in recent years. Pratt,1 Kretz2 and Wearn,3 particularly, have studied these vessels, and have expressed the belief that the heart can be effectively nourished through these channels after both coronary arteries have been occluded. Leary and Wearn4 further believe that under such conditions the only source of blood supply to the myocardium is through these channels.

Although several instances of occlusion of both coronary arteries have been reported5 in which a thebesian circulation was assumed, in no such case, so far as we know, have the sinusoids or dilated thebesian channels been investigated histologically and their distribution and other features studied. The heart of a boy, aged 16, described in case 5 in a paper on "Tuberculosis of the Myocardium,"6 presented a certain combination of pathologic changes which make it appear that for a

Add or change institution
1 Comment for this article
NOURISHMENT OF THE MYOCARDIUM THROUGH (VESSELS OF WEARN).
Brett Snodgrass, MD | Great Mines Health Center
Dear Reader, The connections described by Bellet et al. are not Thebesian veins as they connect a coronary artery to the heart chamber. They are consistent with the vessels of Wearn. http://bit.ly/JTWearnThe myocarditis may have resulted in angiogenesis and the neovascularization in this pathologic condition may be the etiology of the coronary-cameral connection.Comments and suggestions are welcome.Thank you kindly.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST: None Reported
×