Tufts Anatomy Yr-1
Followup Cases

43 year old woman with right breast cancer and prior lumpectomy with reconstruction.

To understand why the latissimus dorsi is a good donor site for this procedure, you must review the blood supply of the muscle. Image A shows the latissimus dorsi muscle outlined in pink on the left of a normal patient. Image B shows the vein that drains latissimus dorsi (circled in blue), filled with dense (white) intravenous contrast material in another patient. The axillary vein is shown in aqua. The artery to the muscle follows a similar course. So if the muscle is cut free from its posterior attachments near the spine, it will still retain its blood supply when moved into the region of the breast for the reconstructive procedure. You can tell that both CT sequences have intravenous contrast present because blood vessels appear whiter than muscle. Unopacified blood is the same density as muscle.