Filipovic et al. Journal of Medical Case Reports 2012, 6:267 http://www.jmedicalcasereports.com/content/6/1/267 C A S E R E P O R T JOURNAL OF MEDICAL CASE REPORTS Open Access An unusual origin of the double left testicular artery in a male cadaver: a case report Branislav Filipovic1*, Lazar Stijak1 and Branka Filipovic2 Abstract Introduction: Variations in the number and course of the testicular arteries, often coexisting with variations of the other branches arising from the abdominal aorta, are still reported to be of interest to urology surgeons. Case presentation: During a routine dissection course, an unusual origin of the double left testicular artery was observed in the cadaver of a 68-year-old Caucasian man who donated his body to the Institute of Anatomy. Conclusions: A deeper understanding of the variations of the testicular arteries is necessary for all physicians whose practice is related to the testicles and their vascular stalk. Introduction The testicular arteries are known to originate from the ventrolateral aspect of the abdominal aorta and descend obliquely to the pelvic cavity. Variations in the number and course of the testicular arteries, often coexisting with variations of the other branches arising from the abdominal aorta, are reported to be less frequent than the variations of the homologous veins [1,2]. The developmentally-based variation of origin dealt mostly with the debranching from the renal artery, either main or accessory [3-7]. Although other anatomical peculiar- ities were related to the same cadaver, such as an early division of the right axillary artery, the presence of the axillary arch on the right side, and the evidence of the accessory renal artery of the same side of the double testicular artery, our aim was to describe, accord- ing to the literature, the rarest of the evidenced anatom- ical variations. Case presentation During routine dissection classes, two left testicular ar- teries were revealed in the cadaver of a 68-year-old Cau- casian man who donated his body through the body donation program: one was medial, originating from an accessory renal artery; the other was lateral, debranching from the common trunk together with the left inferior * Correspondence: filipovic.branislav@gmai.com 1Institute of Anatomy “Niko Miljanic”, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Medicine, 4/2 Dr Subotica, 11000, Belgrade, Serbia Full list of author information is available at the end of the article suprarenal artery. The medial artery was smaller in cali- ber (0.9mm) and followed the course of the regular tes- ticular vein. The lateral left testicular artery was slightly larger (1.2mm) and pierced the tissue of the suprarenal gland immediately after debranching. The lateral artery ran in front of the left renal vein, arched laterally afterwards, ventrally crossed the inferior pole of the left kidney, and followed the lateral border of the psoas major muscle. After a short pathway on the anterior surface of the psoas major, taking the medial course, it joined the medial artery at the entrance of the funi- culus spermaticus. The lateral artery was accompanied by two veins, tributaries of the left suprarenal vein. The right testicular artery had the origin and pathway described in most anatomy textbooks (Figure 1). In the man’s medical chart, no sign of any kind of urological disorder was noted, and no fertility problem was noted in his personal medical record. It was not the only ana- tomical variation found: a division of the axillary artery to the superficial and deep brachial artery was present in the right axilla, and on the left side an axillary arch was revealed. Discussion We present a case of double left testicular artery in which one branch originated from the left renal accessory artery and the other branch arose from the common trunk with the left inferior suprarenal artery. The special feature of this case is that the testicular artery on the left side is double, and none of the two © 2012 Filipovic et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.