Anatomical variations of the arrangement of structures at the pulmonary hilum: a cadaveric study

Purpose: The aim was to study the anatomical variations of the arrangement of structures at the hilum of the lung. Methods: The present study examined the hila of 110 cadaveric lung specimens of south Indian population. The anatomical variations of the arrangement of structures at the hilum were macroscopically observed. Results: It was observed that the variations were higher in the left lung than in the right lung. The variations were observed in 16.1 % of right lungs and 48.2 % of the left lungs. There were some interesting anatomical variations like the two upper pulmonary veins, two pulmonary artery, two bronchi in the hilum of the left lung, three bronchi, four pulmonary veins and four bronchi. The present study was compared with a similar study from the same geographical location. It was observed that the frequency of variations and the hilar morphology of the arrangement of structures differ among the two separate studies from south India. Conclusions: The observations of the present study suggest that the pulmonary hilar morphology is extremely variable.