The Arterial Supply of the Male Reproductive System in the Hamster

The major arteries, the testicular, deferential, prostatic, internal pudendal and external pudendal arteries, supply the male genital organs of the hamster. The same arterial patterns are found in three strains, except that the external pudendal artery arises from the external iliac artery or internal iliac artery in the APG strain, but only from the external iliac artery in the CBN and ACN strains. The deferential and prostatic arteries form the arterial loop on the dorsal surface of the ventrolateral lobe of the prostate. This loop may play some importance parts in the functional interaction between the epididymis and the prostate. The caudal epididymal artery arises more frequently from the spermatic cordai portion of the testicular artery than from the cranial epididymal artery, and it never arises directly from the abdominal part of the testicular artery as reported in the rat, mouse and rabbit. The deferential artery may join with the cranial vesicular artery to form the common trunk (umbilical artery), but sometimes these arteries arise directly from the internal iliac artery.