Clinical importance of a star shaped branch of internal iliac artery and unusual branches of an abnormal obturator artery: rare vascular variations

The internal iliac artery (IIA) is one of the branches of the common iliac artery and supplies the pelvic viscera, the musculoskeletal part of the pelvis, the gluteal region, the medial thigh region and the perineum. During routine cadaveric dissection of a male cadaver for undergraduate Medical students, we observed variation in the course and branching pattern of the left IIA. The artery gave rise to two common trunks and then to the middle rectal artery, inferior vesicle artery and superior vesicle artery. The first, slightly larger, common trunk gave rise to an unnamed artery, the lateral sacral artery and the superior gluteal artery. The second, smaller, common trunk entered the gluteal region through the greater sciatic foramen, below the piriformis muscle and presented a stellate branching pattern deep to the gluteus maximus muscle. Two of the arteries forming the stellate pattern were the internal pudendal artery and the inferior gluteal artery. The other two were muscular branches.