الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Enhanced performance, evaluation, and interpretation of the various forms of cardiological diagnostic procedures and open-heart surgery, the achievement of a rapid improvement in the oxygen consumption of hypoxic myocardium, and the salvage of viable but ischemic myocardium still appear to constitute the most important challenges to modern medicine(1).
Research on the vascular anatomy of the myocardium has mostly been focused on the coronary arteries and myocardical capillaries(2); by comparison, the coronary or cardiac venous systems have traditionally been neglected.
The human coronary sinus is a major component of the cardiac venous system. Recently, in addition to the coronary blood flow studies, it serves as an anatomic landmark and conduit for many diagnostic and therapeutic interventions.
In this area, new frontiers have been crossed through the use of the technique of the coronary sinus catheterization, for instance for the purpose of:
1. Electrophysiological study of the atrial components of the conduction system. The morphology of accessory pathways of the conduction system in the neighborhood of the coronary sinus, their diagnostic and surgical treatment have been investigated and discussed by Sun et al.(3), Robinson et al.(4), Seally and Mikat(5), Kasak et al.(6), Chauvinn et al.(7), Katristsis DG et al.(8), Hussin A et al.(9) and Sun et al.(10).
2. The venous reperfusion of the ventricular myocardium. During the past 50 years, enormous advances have been made in augmenting blood flow to the ischemic myocardium. Many clinicians have great optimism where the method of coronary sinus catheterization and venous reperfusion is concerned(11).
The reperfusion technique permits the protection of under perfused myocardium by catheterization of the CS and perfusion of its related veins(12-14), and enables a reverse nourishment of the myocardium, which is otherwise for instance during lengthy open heart surgery with induced cardiac arrest or in a case of obstructive coronary atherosclerosis- threatened by ischaemia and infarction(15).
The physiologist Pratt(16) was the first to publish the reperfusion technique and its results after performing, animal experiments, but these have almost been forgotten, fifty years later, Beck et al.(17) rediscovered this simple but brilliant idea and recommended it for clinical application.
Since then, cardiologists and heart surgeons have sought more detailed information of the anatomical organization, distribution, patterns, topographical relationships and variable modes of opening of the coronary sinus and the different types of cardiac veins(18).
For clinical purposes, for instance where selective reperfusion of a single cardiac vein is necessary, it is important to know the frequency of occurrence with which the cardiac veins reach the coronary sinus.