Intrapulmonary Vein Contributing a Segment of Venous Supply of Contralateral Lung

¹ Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Parkland Hospital, Dallas, Texas
² Department of Pathology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa
³ Lovelace Clinic, Albuquerque, New Mexico
⁴ Departments of Pathology, The Charles T. Miller Hospital, St. Paul, Minnesota and The University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota (R.D.S., M.E.K. and J.E.E.) and the Cardiovascular Section, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (R.R.P.)

In a 23-month-old girl with asplenia and associated cardiovascular anomalies, the pulmonary venous system was of particular interest. The two major veins of the right lung joined in the mediastinum to form a single vein, which entered the left lung. In the left lung, this vein joined the upper end of a convex vein. From the lower end of the vein within the left lung a vein emerged into the mediastinum. On its way to joining the right of bilateral superior venae cavae, the latter vein received the vein of the middle lobe of the right lung. The phenomenon of the venous supply of one lung crossing the mediastinum and entering the contralateral lung is explained as an anomaly of the pulmonary venous system dating back to the time when the primordia of the two lungs was represented by a single specialized portion of the foregut.