Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Cardiol. Oct 26, 2018; 10(10): 127-140
Published online Oct 26, 2018. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v10.i10.127
Overview of coronary artery variants, aberrations and anomalies
Stylianos Kastellanos, Konstantinos Aznaouridis, Charalambos Vlachopoulos, Eleftherios Tsiamis, Evangelos Oikonomou, Dimitris Tousoulis
Stylianos Kastellanos, Konstantinos Aznaouridis, Cardiology Department, Castle Hill Hospital, Hull and East Yorkshire NHS Trust, Cottingham HU16 5JQ, United Kingdom
Stylianos Kastellanos, Konstantinos Aznaouridis, Charalambos Vlachopoulos, Eleftherios Tsiamis, Evangelos Oikonomou, Dimitris Tousoulis, Peripheral Vessels Unit and EKKAN (Unit for the athletes and for hereditary cardiovascular diseases), 1st Department of Cardiology, Hippokration Hospital, Medical School of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens 11527, Greece
Author contributions: Kastellanos S collected the clinical data, designed and drafted the manuscript and approved the final version; Aznaouridis K conceived the idea for this review, designed and critically revised the manuscript and approved the final version; Vlachopoulos C, Tsiamis E, Oikonomou E and Tousoulis D critically revised the manuscript and approved the final version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest. No financial support.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Konstantinos Aznaouridis, MD, PhD, Doctor, Consultant Interventional Cardiologist, Peripheral Vessels Unit and EKKAN (Unit for the athletes and for hereditary cardiovascular diseases), 1st Department of Cardiology, Hippokration Hospital, Medical School of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 114 Vas. Sofias Avenue, Athens 11527, Greece. conazna@yahoo.com
Telephone: +30-697-2024534
Received: April 16, 2018
Peer-review started: April 16, 2018
First decision: June 6, 2018
Revised: August 12, 2018
Accepted: August 31, 2018
Article in press: August 31, 2018
Published online: October 26, 2018
Processing time: 194 Days and 3.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Coronary artery anomalies and variants are a diverse group of congenital disorders of the coronary artery anatomy with a wide variety of clinical manifestations. Though relatively uncommon and usually discovered incidentally during coronary angiography, they have garnered interest because they are the second most common cause of sudden cardiac death in young competitive athletes. Though by no means entirely exhaustive, this overview aims to act as a guide for the practicing cardiologist along the complex web of these disorders and may facilitate the assessment, investigation, follow-up and treatment of patients diagnosed with or suspected of having a coronary artery anomaly.