Anterior circumflex humeral artery at a glance
- What it is
- The anterior circumflex humeral artery is a small branch of the axillary artery that wraps around the front of the surgical neck of the humerus.
- Location
- It arises from the third part of the axillary artery, passes laterally deep to coracobrachialis and the short head of biceps, and anastomoses with the posterior circumflex humeral artery. It gives an ascending branch along the intertubercular groove.
- Function
- It supplies the shoulder joint, the head of the humerus and the nearby muscles.
- Body system
- Cardiovascular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA22683 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- It is much smaller than the posterior circumflex humeral artery.
Structures next to the anterior circumflex humeral artery
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Posterior circumflex humeral artery · cardiovascular
- Clavicular part of deltoid · muscular
- Acromial part of deltoid · muscular
- Subscapular artery · cardiovascular
- Circumflex scapular artery · cardiovascular
- Deltoid branch of thoraco-acromial artery · cardiovascular
- Coracobrachialis · muscular
- Axillary artery · cardiovascular
- Axillary vein · cardiovascular
- Teres minor · muscular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Anterior circumflex humeral artery (FMA22683). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
- OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §20.1 Structure and Function of Blood Vessels. Rice University, 2022.
- Mitsuhashi N. et al. (2009). BodyParts3D: 3D structure database for anatomical concepts. Nucleic Acids Research 37, D782–D785. Data © The Database Center for Life Science, CC BY 4.0.
Related anatomy
Explore the whole body in the interactive 3D human anatomy model, or browse the A–Z list of human structures.