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The lingual-facial-ascending pharyngeal trunk
George Triantafyllou1,2, Panagiotis Papadopoulos-Manolarakis1,3, Rǎzvan-Costin Tudose4
1Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 75 Mikras Asias str, Goudi, Athens, 11527, Greece.
None:
Though small, the ascending pharyngeal artery (APA) is surgically significant due to its proximity to the internal carotid artery (ICA) and supply to critical neurovascular structures. We present a unique arterial variant identified by computed tomography angiography (CTA) in a 52-year-old male. On the left side, the APA originated in common with a short linguofacial trunk (LFT) that further gave rise to the lingual and facial arteries (LA and FA), forming a trifurcated LA-FA-APA trunk. On the right side, an independent LFT was present, with the APA originating separately from the external carotid artery (ECA). CTA with three-dimensional reconstruction is essential for detecting rare vascular configurations and should be part of the preoperative evaluation for head and neck surgeries and endovascular procedures.
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