A Systematic Review of the Prevalence of Anatomical Variations of the Renal Artery

Mohammed A Abuelnour,

Published on: 2020-06-06

Abstract

Background: The presence of one or more additional artery is the commonest arterial anatomical variation of the kidneys, the main aim of this systemic review is to establish the actual prevalence of renal artery variations regarding, Level of origin and accessory renal arteries to increase awareness about them.
Methodology: PubMed, EMBASE, Science Direct, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library databases were searched to identify articles that studied the prevalence of the renal artery variations.
Results: We included 51 articles in the final analysis of prevalence, of which 46 contained data about the branches pattern of the renal artery, 5 about the vertebral level of origin of the renal artery, and 9 articles contained data about the pattern branches and level of origin of the renal artery. The pooled prevalence rates of the single main renal artery, accessory hilar artery, superior polar artery, and inferior polar artery were (81.05%; 95% CI 78.55, 83.55), (11.97%; 95%CI 10.22, 13.72), (6.46%; 95%CI 4.96, 7.96), and (6.24%; 95%CI 5.74, 6.24), respectively. The prevalence of level of origin of the main renal artery were 0.38% (95% CI: 0.38%, 0.39%) at level of T12, 20.37%, (95% CI: 20.36%, 20.36%) at level of L1, 14.16% (95% CI: 14.15%, 14.16%) at level of disc between L1- L2, and 16.60% (95% CI: 16.59%, 16.60%) at level of L2.
Conclusions: Accessory hilar arteries is a common type of anatomical variations of the renal artery among the population. Considerations of this arteries is important to prevent possible intraoperative complications.

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