Anterior tibial artery at a glance
- What it is
- The anterior tibial artery is the artery of the front compartment of the leg and the main source of the dorsalis pedis artery.
- Location
- It arises from the popliteal artery at the lower border of popliteus, passes above the interosseous membrane into the anterior compartment, and descends on the membrane with the deep fibular nerve. It gives off the anterior and posterior tibial recurrent arteries and the malleolar arteries, and becomes the dorsalis pedis artery at the ankle.
- Function
- It supplies the muscles of the anterior leg compartment, the ankle and the dorsum of the foot via its continuation.
- Body system
- Cardiovascular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA43897 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- It becomes the dorsalis pedis artery midway between the malleoli.
- Its pulse can be felt in front of the ankle midway between the malleoli, where it becomes dorsalis pedis.
Structures next to the anterior tibial artery
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Interosseous membrane of leg · skeletal
- Fibularis longus · muscular
- Tibialis posterior · muscular
- Tibia · skeletal
- Tibialis anterior · muscular
- Fibula · skeletal
- Small saphenous vein · cardiovascular
- Soleus · muscular
- Plantaris · muscular
- Posterior tibial artery · cardiovascular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Anterior tibial artery (FMA43897). 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.