A CADAVERIC STUDY OF VARIABILITY IN THE ORIGIN OF OBTURATOR ARTERY

Address for Correspondence: Dr. Santosh Kumar Mulage, Associate Professor, Department of Anatomy, Gulbarga Institute of Medical Sciences, Gulbarga.585101, Karnataka, India. Mob: 9449302888. E-Mail: drsantu77@gmail.com INTRODUCTION International Journal of Anatomy and Research, Int J Anat Res 2018, Vol 6(2.1):5096-100. ISSN 2321-4287 DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.16965/ijar.2018.124 Access this Article online Quick Response code International Journal of Anatomy and Research ISSN (E) 2321-4287 | ISSN (P) 2321-8967 https://www.ijmhr.org/ijar.htm DOI-Prefix: https://dx.doi.org/10.16965/ijar DOI: 10.16965/ijar.2018.124 1 Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy, Karwar Institute of Medical Sciences, Karwar, Karnataka, India. *2 Associate ProfessorDepartment of Anatomy, Gulbarga Institute of Medical Sciences, Gulbarga, Karnataka, India. Received: 30 Jan 2018 Peer Review: 30 Jan 2018 Revised: None Accepted: 07 Mar 2018 Published (O): 05 Apr 2018 Published (P): 05 Apr 2018 Journal Information

the branches of the anterior division of the internal iliac artery.It passes downwards on the lateral pelvic wall to reach and passes through the obturator foramen.It is the chief artery which supplies hip joint and muscles of adductor compartment as well as it gives branches to urinary bladder and twigs to ilium and pubis The retro pubic space is the most common targeted area for gynecologists and surgeons during intra-abdominal therapeutics procedures to avoid hemorrhagic complication.The origin of obturator artery (OA) is important clinically because of its vascular role.The OA is one of within pelvis [1].The vascular variations of origin of OA have been well acknowledged in the literature.The source of OA has been documented from all possible neighboring arteries i.e. common iliac, external iliac or from any branch of the internal iliac in both sexes.So the course and ramification of the OA especially in the pelvis and retro pubic space have received attention for gynecologists and surgeons because the anomalous origin of OA and its variation are the main etiology of bleeding [2].

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Thirty formalin-fixed specimens were selected irrespective of side and sex from 50 human cadaveric bisected pelvises during the routine dissection in the Department of Anatomy, Gulbarga Institute of medical sciences, Gulbarga.The dissected method was employed for the study in each half of the pelvis.After the locating the common iliac artery, the branches of the internal and external iliac artery were dissected.The pattern of origin of the obturator artery was identified.The obturator artery was traced from its origin to it extends till the obturator foramen.Statistical analysis: The data was entered and analyzed in Microsoft office excel 2007.The generated data was summarized as percentages.
An observation concerning the different sources of origin of obturator artery was shown in tab.1.Out of 30 formalin fixed bisected pelvic specimens studied, 53.3% (16 specimens) were found variation in the origin of obturator artery either from an internal iliac artery or from the external iliac artery.In 80% (24 sides) the origin of obturator artery was from the internal iliac artery whereas, in 20% (6 sides), it arouses from the external iliac artery.In 76.7% (23 specimens), the obturator artery was originated from anterior division of internal iliac artery.In the majority of these 46.7% (14 specimens), the obturator artery arouses as a single and direct branch of the anterior division of the internal iliac artery while variation in its origin as a common trunk was observed in 30% (9 specimens).In 3.3% (one specimen), obturator artery had its origin from the posterior division of the internal iliac artery as a common trunk with superior and inferior gluteal artery.The assessment of gender and laterality of variations in the origin of obturator artery was not considered as the study was conducted on bisected pelvises available in the Department of Anatomy.In the present study, we observed that the first most common  origin of Obturator artery (OA) was from the anterior division of internal iliac artery (IIA) followed by the inferior epigastric artery (IEA).The variability of origin of obturator artery is summarized in Table 2. Dissection images and Schematic representation of variability of OA origin is depicted in the Figure 1.

DISCUSSION
The exposure to the lower abdominal region is important during various operative, diagnostic and intra-abdominal therapeutics procedures.
The most common source of origin of obturator artery is a single branch arising from the anterior division of the internal iliac artery.However, variability in the origin of obturator artery had been documented from all possible neighboring arteries i.e. common iliac, external iliac or from any branch of the internal iliac in either sex [3].The course and ramification of such variant vessels create an eye opener for the gynecologists and surgeons during intra-abdominal therapeutics procedures.The incidence of obturator artery (OA) arising from the anterior division of internal iliac artery (IIA) in the literature varies from 35% to 66% [4][5][6][7][8].The present study findings and the Previous studies findings on the variability of origin of obturator artery are summarized in Table 2.
In the present study, the incidence of obturator artery arising from the anterior division of internal iliac artery was found in 46.7% of specimens.
Our finding was similar and close to Braithwaite

Table 1 :
Shows the incidence of different sources of origin of artery.

Table 2 :
Comparison of present study findings with the studies.