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Fibular artery

Artery: Fibular artery

Picture of arteries of the lower limb, showing fibular artery and its source, the posterior tibial artery. The perforating branch of fibular artery is also shown.

Cross-section through middle of leg. (Fibular artery labeled as Peroneal at bottom right.)
Latin	arteria fibularis, arteria peronea
Gray's	subject #162 638
Supplies	lateral compartment of the leg
Source	usually posterior tibial artery, occasionally popliteal artery
Branches	communicating branch (to the anterior tibial artery) and the perforating branch (to the posterior tibial artery)
Vein	Fibular vein
Dorlands/Elsevier	a_61/12154284

In anatomy, the fibular artery (also known as the peroneal artery) supplies blood to the lateral compartment of the leg and is typically a branch of posterior tibial artery.^[1]

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1 Structure
- 1.1 Branches
2 Nomenclature
3 References
4 Additional images

Structure

The fibular artery branches off the posterior tibial artery in the upper part of the leg proper, just below the knee. It runs downward in the deep posterior compartment of the leg, just medial to the fibula. It supplies a perforating branch to both the lateral and anterior compartments of the leg; it also provides a nutrient artery to the fibula.

The fibular artery is accompanied by small veins (venae comitantes) known as fibular veins

Branches

Communication branch to anterior tibial artery.

Perforating branch to Anterior lateral malleolar artery.

A calcaneal branch to the lateral part of the calcaneus.

Nomenclature

At one point in its history, both the Greek term perone and the Latin term fibula were competing to describe the smaller bone of the leg. Many of the arteries, veins, nerves, and muscles in the leg are named according to what bone they are near (e.g. tibialis anterior and the tibial nerve are near the tibia). So the artery that runs near the smaller leg bone had two names: the peroneal artery and the fibular artery. The term fibula eventually became the standard name for the bone, but many of the related arteries, muscles, and nerves are still called by the Greek derived name peroneal. The Terminologia Anatomica, the international standard for anatomical nomenclature, states that both fibula and perone derived names are acceptable, but lists the fibula derived names as the preferred terms.

Like fibula, the perone (pronounced pair-uh-knee) means pin of a brooch or buckle.

References

^ Day C, Orme R (2006). "Popliteal artery branching patterns -- an angiographic study". Clin Radiol 61 (8): 696-9. PMID 16843754.

Additional images

v • d • e List of arteries of lower limbs
EI: Femoral	superficial epigastric - superficial iliac circumflex - external pudendal (superficial, deep/anterior scrotal arteries) - profunda femoris (lateral circumflex femoral, medial circumflex femoral, perforating) - descending genicular
Popliteal	anterior tibial - sural genicular: superior genicular (medial, lateral) - middle genicular - inferior genicular (medial, lateral)
Anterior tibial	dorsalis pedis: tarsal (lateral - medial) - arcuate - dorsal metatarsal/first dorsal metatarsal - deep plantar tibial recurrent (posterior, anterior) anterior malleolar (medial, lateral)
Posterior tibial	circumflex fibular - fibular medial plantar - lateral plantar (plantar arch, plantar metatarsal)

Categories: Arteries | Pelvic limb anatomy

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Fibular_artery". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.