Body of sternum at a glance
- What it is
- The long middle part of the sternum.
- Location
- Lies between the manubrium and the xiphoid process.
- Function
- Protects the heart and articulates with costal cartilages 3 to 6, and with parts of cartilages 2 and 7.
- Body system
- Skeletal · single, midline structure
- FMA ID
- FMA7487 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- It forms from fused sternebrae.
- Its four sternebrae fuse from below upward between puberty and about age 25; the notches on its lateral borders mark the joints for costal cartilages 2–7.
- It joins the manubrium at the sternal angle (about T4–T5) and the xiphoid at the xiphisternal joint (about T9).
Clinical relevance
Bone marrow can be sampled from it. An occasional midline sternal foramen, a defect of fusion, is a hazard during sternal puncture.
Structures next to the body of sternum
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Anterior cardiac vein · cardiovascular
- Third costal cartilage · skeletal
- Fourth costal cartilage · skeletal
- Conus artery · cardiovascular
- Internal thoracic vein · cardiovascular
- Anterior leaflet of tricuspid valve · cardiovascular
- Transversus thoracis · muscular
- Anterior cusp of pulmonary valve · cardiovascular
- Internal thoracic artery · cardiovascular
- Small cardiac vein · cardiovascular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Body of sternum (FMA7487). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
- OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §7.1 Divisions of the Skeletal System. 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.