Collateral vessels between the coronary and bronchial arteries in patients with cyanotic congenital heart disease.

Selective coronary arteriography (using the Sones technique) was performed in 67 patients with congenital heart disease aged 1 to 33 years. Five of the 23 patients with cyanotic congenital heart disease had collateral vessels between the coronary and bronchial arteries; none of the 44 patients with noncyanotic congenital heart disease had such vessels. Each of the five patients with collateral vessels had severe obstruction of the right ventricular outflow tract or the pulmonary valve plus a ventricular septal defect and a right to left shunt. It appears that such collateral vessels from the coronary arteries provide an increment to pulmonary blood flow in patients with cyanotic congenital heart disease and diminished pulmonary flow.