Radiologic anatomy of the rabbit liver on hepatic venography, arteriography, portography, and cholangiography

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES. The radiologic anatomy of rabbit liver has received little study but is important in many experimental investigations. METHODS. Twenty-four rabbits were studied by using hepatic venograms, aortograms, hepatic arteriograms, cholangiograms, and portograms. RESULTS. In all cases, the right, middle, and left hepatic veins drained into the inferior vena cava just below the diaphragm, and the caudate lobe hepatic vein drained more inferiorly. The proper hepatic artery was a branch of the common hepatic artery in 96%. The first branch of the proper hepatic artery was the caudate lobe artery. The remaining main hepatic artery was divided into the right and left hepatic arteries. The left hepatic artery was further divided into the medial and lateral segmental branches in 95%. The anatomy of the portal vein or bile duct was the same as the hepatic artery in 100% of cases. CONCLUSIONS. Knowledge of the normal patterns and variations of the vessels and bile duct will be helpful for experiments of the rabbit liver in future studies.