REVIEW   

Chirurgia 2017 February;30(1):6-13

DOI: 10.23736/S0394-9508.16.04602-7

Copyright © 2016 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Reporting standards for normal blood vessels diameters: a systematic review

Raffaele SERRA ^{1, 2}, Ugo F. SETTIMIO ¹, Lucia BUTRICO ¹, Ciro FALASCONI ³, Giovanni DE CARIDI ⁴, Mafalda MASSARA ⁴, Raffaele GRANDE ¹, Stefano DE FRANCISCIS ^{1, 2} ✉

¹ Interuniversity Center of Phlebolymphology (CIFL), International Research and Educational Program in Clinical and Experimental Biotechnology, University Magna Graecia of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy; ² Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy; ³ Local Health Unit of Naples, Naples, Italy; ⁴ Department of Dentistry and Medical and Surgical Experimental Sciences, University of Messina, Messina, Italy

INTRODUCTION: Despite the anatomy of arteries and veins is well explored in literature, there is not a systematic collection about complete information regarding arterial and vein normal diameters.
EVIDENCE ACQUISITION: PubMed and Science Direct were used for the literature search using the following terms and combinations of them: Normal Arterial Diameters, Normal Vein Diameter, Blood Vessel Dimensions, Sex Factors, Age Modification, Cadaver. Only English studies were included.
EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS: This paper searched and organized literature data, to show normal diameter values of veins and arteries in the human body highlighting the difference according to physiological conditions, such as sex and age. Our initial search retrieved 505 title, 336 in PUBMED and 169 in Science Direct. We selected 343 studies after removal of the duplicates. From these we eliminated 32 articles because not performed in English or in humans. The authors eliminated further 145 articles because not performed in adults, performed in presence of vascular or systemic pathologies, were not interesting or there were confounding features; thus, 34 studies were included in quantitative synthesis.
CONCLUSIONS: This systematic review provides the general and vascular surgeons with reference values which may be helpful for a more objective morphological evaluation of the main blood vessels.

KEY WORDS: Blood vessels - Arteries - Veins