Inferior epigastric artery at a glance
- What it is
- The inferior epigastric artery is a branch of the external iliac artery supplying the anterior abdominal wall.
- Location
- It arises just above the inguinal ligament, passes medial to the deep inguinal ring, pierces the transversalis fascia and ascends behind the rectus abdominis inside the rectus sheath to anastomose with the superior epigastric artery. It gives cremasteric and pubic branches.
- Function
- It supplies the rectus abdominis and the lower anterior abdominal wall.
- Body system
- Cardiovascular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA20689 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- It forms the lateral border of the inguinal (Hesselbach's) triangle.
Clinical relevance
Indirect inguinal hernias emerge lateral to it and direct hernias medial to it. It can be injured when laparoscopic ports are placed. Its pubic branch forms an accessory obturator artery in about a quarter of people.
Structures next to the inferior epigastric artery
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Inferior epigastric vein · cardiovascular
- Sigmoid artery · cardiovascular
- Ileal artery · cardiovascular
- Sigmoid vein · cardiovascular
- Mesentery of small intestine · digestive
- Ileal vein · cardiovascular
- Inferior mesenteric artery · cardiovascular
- Anterior cecal artery · cardiovascular
- Common iliac artery · cardiovascular
- Taenia omentalis · digestive
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Inferior epigastric artery (FMA20689). 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.
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