Ascending aorta at a glance
- What it is
- The ascending aorta is the first part of the aorta, rising from the left ventricle.
- Location
- It begins at the aortic valve, about 5 cm long, inside the pericardium, and is wrapped with the pulmonary trunk in a shared pericardial sleeve. It ends at the level of the sternal angle where it becomes the arch of the aorta. Its only branches are the right and left coronary arteries.
- Function
- It carries oxygenated blood from the left ventricle and supplies the heart itself via the coronary arteries.
- Body system
- Cardiovascular · single, midline structure
- FMA ID
- FMA3736 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Its dilated base, the aortic root, contains the three aortic sinuses.
- The right and left coronary arteries arise from the right and left aortic sinuses just above the valve cusps.
Clinical relevance
Aortic dissection or aneurysm of the ascending aorta is a surgical emergency.
Structures next to the ascending aorta
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Anterior cusp of aortic valve · cardiovascular
- Posterior cusp of aortic valve · cardiovascular
- Trunk of coronary artery · cardiovascular
- Posterior cusp of pulmonary valve · cardiovascular
- Wall of atrium · cardiovascular
- Esophagus · digestive
- Pulmonary trunk · cardiovascular
- Cavity of atrium · cardiovascular
- Internal thoracic artery · cardiovascular
- Septal leaflet of tricuspid valve · cardiovascular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Ascending aorta (FMA3736). 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.