The variability of the small cardiac vein in the adult human heart.

Direct analyses were performed on 50 hearts submitted for post mortem examination. The remaining hearts were examined by the corrosion method. The aim of the work was to assess the morphology of the small cardiac vein. The small cardiac vein, which runs along the back surface of the coronary sulcus, would usually drain into the coronary sinus at its right side (86% of cases). Cases of the small cardiac vein draining into the middle cardiac vein were also noticed (12%) or directly into the right atrium (1%). In 1% of the preparations it ran along the right margin in the direction of the apex of the heart. In 30% of the corrosion preparations the small cardiac vein was not accessible with the help of corrosion. In 24% of the dissection preparations it was not possible to reach the small cardiac vein with the help of dissection. A statistically significant relationship was observed between the frequency of the presence or absence of the small cardiac vein and the sex of the donor (p > 0.001). In the group examined the percentage of men who did not have the small cardiac vein was 6 times higher than among the woman. There was no evidence for any statistically significant dependence between the frequency of occurrence or of absence of the small cardiac vein and the technique employed.