A rare variant of the radial artery was discovered during a pseudoaneurysm of the brachial artery in a hemodialysis patient

Abstract

This is a 59 year-old patient, on chronic hemodialysis for 7 months from a left radial istula, who presented to the emergency room for the appearance of a throbbing and painful mass in the left arm, evolving for 3 days, without the notion of trauma. Doppler ultrasound of the upper limb showed the presence of a pseudoaneurysm of the left brachial artery. The CT angiography con irmed both the diagnosis of brachial pseudoaneurysm and the presence of two radial arteries; one of high birth from the axillary artery and one of usual birth from the brachial artery (Figures 1-4). The patient underwent emergency surgery by approaching the brachial artery at the level of the arm, surgical exploration showed the presence of a giant false aneurysm (Figure 5) and a 2 mm breach of the brachial artery which was sutured (Figure 6). The postoperative course was simple.