ABSTRACT
Anatomical variation in the abdominal aorta is common and extremely important. We found a rare variation of the abdominal aorta in a Korean male cadaver during a routine dissection course. The superior mesenteric artery gives off a small branch for the descending colon, named accessory left colic artery due to its distribution. The inferior mesenteric artery arises normally from the abdominal aorta and supplied the sigmoid colon and the upper part of the rectum. This variation was rare and it has not been reported previously in Korean. Knowledge of the arterial variation in this region is considerable important during abdominal surgery and invasive procedures. The authors describe this previously unreported case and discuss the clinical implications of such a variant with a brief review of the literature.