hi let's talk about the cardiac veins in this video we'll discuss the venous drainage of the
heart so the cardiac veins are of two systems there is the greater system which is the bulk of
drainage from the heart and the smaller system the greater system is what drains most of the
myocardium and most of the myocardium is what we would refer to as the sub epicardium
myocardium so that's nearly full thickness of the myocardium all of this greater system is draining
into the right atrium by means of a coronary sinus that coronary sinus which is here occupies
the coronary sulcus in between the diaphragmatic surface of the heart and the base of the heart and
it's fed by several tributaries the first being the great cardiac vein the great cardiac vein
occupies the anterior interventricular sulcus paired up with the anterior interventricular
branch it's usually superficial to the anterior interventricular branch and it wraps around in
that coronary sulcus to drain directly into the coronary sinus there's also the middle cardiac
vein the middle cardiac vein is found within the posterior interventricular sulcus superficial to
the posterior interventricular branch and that also drains directly into the coronary
sinus the next major tributary is the small cardiac vein the small cardiac vein
follows along the inferior border of the heart usually superficial to the right marginal branch
and then it wraps around in the coronary sulcus to feed into the coronary sinus so
the three major tributaries of the coronary sinus include the great cardiac vein from the anterior
interventricular sulcus the middle cardiac vein from the posterior interventricular sulcus and the
small cardiac vein from the inferior border of the heart that coronary sinus is draining into
the right atrium just adjacent to the um the av node of the heart there are also anterior
cardiac veins these anterior cardiac veins are quite unique in that they they're draining the
wall of the right ventricle but they don't feed typically into the coronary sinus they can from
time to time feed into the small cardiac vein but usually they drain independently
into the right atrium and upon dissection you can usually identify these because they're
bridging over the rca within the coronary sulcus the smaller system consists of small cardiac
veins sometimes called thebsian veins after adam christian thebcs which was a german anatomist
these small cardiac veins drain the sub-endocardial myocardium so we're talking about
this region of the myocardium and they drain directly into whichever chamber they are adjacent
to so they are at their greatest density curiously enough around the right atrium
they are at their least density around the left ventricle but all of these small cardiac veins
drain into the chambers of which the myocardium is going to surround more at the right atrium
less at the left ventricle so we've discussed the greater and the smaller system of cardiac veins
and how the greater system consists of a coronary sinus draining into the right atrium with great
middle and small cardiac vein tributaries and anterior cardiac veins that drain directly into
the right atrium there are also small cardiac veins or pepsian veins of the smaller system
that drain directly into the chambers
of which they're adjacent this is your summary slide thank you for your time