Corpus: Vascular anastomosis

The term vascular anastomosis refers to the natural or surgically created connection (anastomosis) of two vessels or the connection of an artificial vascular prosthesis to a natural vessel.

The following three types of natural anatomical anastomoses are distinguished:

• Arterioarterial anastomosis: connection between two arteries or arterioles
• Venovenous anastomosis: connection between two veins or venules
• Arteriovenous anastomosis: vascular connection between an arteriole and a venule. These anastomoses play a role in the heat balance, particularly in the skin.

A distinction can be made between different techniques for surgically created vascular anastomoses:

• End-to-end anastomosis is used for vascular injuries, for example.
• End-to-side anastomosis is used, for example, to surgically bypass a pathological vascular change (aneurysm of the abdominal aorta).
• Side-to-side anastomosis is used to connect natural vessels (e.g. port-systemic shunts, which are now rarely operated on).