My watch list
my.bionity.com  
Login  

Lateral thoracic artery



Artery: Lateral thoracic artery
Axillary artery, with its branches, including the lateral thoracic artery. Anterior view of right upper limb and thorax.
Latin arteria thoracalis lateralis
Gray's subject #149 588
Supplies Serratus anterior muscle
Pectoralis major muscle
Source axillary artery
Vein lateral thoracic vein
Dorlands/Elsevier a_61/12156319

In human anatomy, the lateral thoracic artery (or external mammary artery) is a blood vessel that supplies oxygenated blood to the lateral structures of the thorax and breast.

It originates from the axillary artery and follows the lower border of the Pectoralis minor muscle to the side of the chest, supplies the Serratus anterior muscle and the Pectoralis major muscle, and sends branches across the axilla to the axillary glands and Subscapularis muscle; it anastomoses with the internal thoracic artery, subscapular, and intercostal arteries, and with the pectoral branch of the thoracoacromial artery.

In the female it supplies an external mammary branch which turns round the free edge of the Pectoralis major and supplies the mamma.

This article was originally based on an entry from a public domain edition of Gray's Anatomy. As such, some of the information contained herein may be outdated. Please edit the article if this is the case, and feel free to remove this notice when it is no longer relevant.

 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Lateral_thoracic_artery". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.
Your browser is not current. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 does not support some functions on Chemie.DE