Internal thoracic artery at a glance
- What it is
- The internal thoracic artery supplies the anterior chest wall.
- Location
- It arises from the first part of the subclavian artery, descends behind the costal cartilages about 1 cm lateral to the sternum and divides into the superior epigastric and musculophrenic arteries at the sixth intercostal space. It gives the pericardiacophrenic, anterior intercostal, perforating, mediastinal and thymic branches.
- Function
- It supplies the anterior chest wall, the breast, the diaphragm and the upper rectus abdominis.
- Body system
- Cardiovascular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA3969 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- The left internal thoracic artery is the preferred bypass graft to the left anterior descending artery.
Clinical relevance
The left internal thoracic artery is the preferred bypass graft to the left anterior descending artery because it stays open for many years.
Structures next to the internal thoracic artery
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Anterior cusp of pulmonary valve · cardiovascular
- Internal thoracic vein · cardiovascular
- Conus artery · cardiovascular
- Pulmonary trunk · cardiovascular
- Posterior cusp of pulmonary valve · cardiovascular
- Second costal cartilage · skeletal
- Trunk of coronary artery · cardiovascular
- Third costal cartilage · skeletal
- Anterior cusp of aortic valve · cardiovascular
- Lobe of thymus · endocrine
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Internal thoracic artery (FMA3969). 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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