Surgical Techniques for the Treatment of Anomalous Origin of Right Coronary Artery From the Left Sinus: A Comparative Review

Abstract

The anomalous aortic origin of the right coronary artery (AAORCA) from the left sinus is a congenital anomaly affecting both the origin and course of the right coronary artery. AAORCA is nowadays easily and increasingly recognized by several cardiac imaging modalities. In most cases, patients remain asymptomatic; however, in some, and especially in young athletes, symptoms start to appear following exertion. A literature review was conducted on the surgical management of AAORCA by searching the Pubmed and Google Scholar databases. The inclusion criteria included manuscripts reporting surgical outcomes of AAORCA for ≥1 of the 3 techniques of interest (unroofing, reimplantation, and coronary artery bypass grafting) and manuscripts written in English and that were published between 2010 and 2020. The surgical management of AAORCA can be done through several techniques, most commonly the unroofing of the intramural segment of the AAORCA, the reimplantation of the native right coronary artery onto the right sinus of the aortic root, and coronary artery bypass grafting with either arterial or venous graft conduits with or without ligation of the proximal right coronary artery. Superiority of one surgical technique has not yet been formally proven because of the rare nature of this condition and the lack of any prospective randomized controlled trial or robust prospective observational studies.

Keywords

• anomalous right coronary artery from left sinus
• congenital heart disease
• coronary artery bypass graft surgery
• RCA translocation and re‐implantation
• unroofing