VARIANT ANATOMY OF PLANTAR ARTERIES AND THEIR TOPOGRAPHIC-ANATOMICAL RELATIONS WITH FOOT BONES AND JOINTS

Objective - to determine, using the postvital angiography and preparation, the most frequently encountered variants of the architectonics of the sole arteries and to estimate their morphometric characteristics and topographic-anatomical relations with the bones and joints of the foot. Materials and methods. Blood vessels of the leg and foot of 60 lower extremities of the dead bodies of adult persons were injected with the incompressible hardening radiopaque masses, followed by radiography. Results. Architectonics of the arterial bed of the foot differed by the degree of development of major arteries and by the presence of macroscopically visible anastomoses between them. On these grounds, 4 main variants of architectonics of the arteries of the foot were distinguished. The most common of them (70%) was the variant with the predominance of the lateral plantar artery and the presence of prominent anastomoses between the terminal branches of the medial plantar artery and the branches of the deep plantar arch vascularized from the dorsal artery of the foot. Much less common were the variants with the equal diameters of lateral and medial arteries of the foot and those with no macroscopically visible anastomoses between these arteries. Conclusions. Morphometric studies indicate a wide range of differences between the minimum and maximum values of the internal diameters of the arteries of the foot.

foot, plantar arteries, variant anatomy, postvital angiography, morphometry