Post mortem uterine arteriography and in vivo angiographic diagnosis

Arteriography of the small pelvis was done to obtain exact data on the extension of uterine tumours. Some findings were useful in differential diagnostics in vivo. The borderline between the uterine corpus and collum cannot be characterized by the elbow of the uterine artery (the end of its parametrian part) but by the most medial loop of the ascending part of the vessel, coinciding with the end of the cervical canal. The cervix gets its blood supply from the uterine artery only in two-thirds of the cases and even if so, the cervico-vaginal branch takes its origin not from the isthmic but from the parametrian part of the uterine artery. Visualisation of small arteries in the parametrium is difficult in vivo mostly because of their modest vascularity.