Surgeries can sometimes revealunusualthings about a patient role . A recent paper inBMJ Case Reportshas described a particularly rare discovery : a person with two internal jugular veins . duplicate of this nervure is rare , with only four other case write about in scientific literature to appointment .

The internal jugular vein is located in the carotid cocktail dress in the neck , alongside the vagus nerve and carotid arteries . It run down the left and right sides of the neck , delivering blood from the neck , face , and brain to the right atrium of the heart . The vein is not protect by cartilage or pearl , and damage to the internal jugular vein can cause rapid and significant blood loss that can be disastrous .

A 40 - year - sometime man came to a operative section in India with a wound in his mouth , which was name as a type of skin cancer called squamous cellular telephone carcinoma . programme were made to surgically hit the cancer , and a neck dissection was started . During the dissection , the surgeon spotted an hypertrophied lymph node . When moving the right internal jugular vein out of the way to get to the lymph node , they constitute a surprise – a 2nd internal jugular vein was nestled behind the first . The two matching veins eventually come together as one , below the omohyoid muscle in the front of the neck .

The growing of the vascular system is complex and can take to variation in the internal jugular venous blood vessel , with well - document version need differences in size of it or shape . These variations can make operating theater on the area more complicated . It has been cover that around two - one-third of variations come about on the left-hand - hired hand side . However , this rare duplication was of the correct side – alas for the surgeons , as the right is somewhat large than the left , meaning the danger of pedigree loss from damage during surgery is increased .

The high hazard of line departure , fuse with multiple branch drain into both nervure , meant that the surgeon needed to adopt an even more conservative approach than usual . fortuitously , aside from the unusual find , the surgery went as planned . A CT scan of the patient role was examined , confirm that the duplication was in the al-Qa’ida of the neck at the level of the C6 vertebra .

This discovery , while rarefied and exciting , was assume extremely seriously by the surgeons due to the increase risk to the patient .   “ The surgical implications can not be over emphasised , ” they publish in the newspaper publisher , urge that in the future , surgeons conduct out a “ careful preoperative study of CT to decree out any variations in the vasculature of head and cervix . ”