DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2015.v03i03.032

Pages: 1193-1195

Pulmonary veins carry oxygenated blood from the lungs and drain into left atrium via pulmonary ostia. Though generally there are four pulmonary ostia, variations in number and drainage pattern are often noticed and this is valuable for various procedures involving them. The present study is done on 30 human hearts obtained from the dissection hall of Department of Anatomy, SIMS, Hyderabad. The drainage pattern of pulmonary veins draining into left atrium was studied carefully. Out of the 30 hearts, 10 hearts shows variation in pulmonary ostia. In 86.7% of hearts, right pulmonary veins drain the left atrium through 2 pulmonary ostia followed by 3 pulmonary ostia (6.7%) and 1 pulmonary ostia (6.6%). Also, in 90% of the hearts, left pulmonary veins drain the left atrium through 2 pulmonary ostia followed by 10% of the hearts in which left pulmonary veins drain through 1 pulmonary ostium.