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Lateral circumflex femoral artery: anatomy, location and function

The lateral circumflex femoral artery supplies the lateral thigh. It supplies the quadriceps, the hip region and the lateral thigh.

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Highlighted in the model: Lateral circumflex femoral artery. Click any part to read about it, or switch off “Highlight topic” to see the whole body. 3D data: BodyParts3D, © The Database Center for Life Science, CC BY 4.0; meshes simplified and recoloured. The model is an adult male.

Lateral circumflex femoral artery at a glance

What it is
The lateral circumflex femoral artery supplies the lateral thigh.
Location
It usually arises from the deep femoral artery (directly from the femoral artery in about 15-20%), passes laterally between branches of the femoral nerve, deep to sartorius and rectus femoris and divides into ascending, transverse and descending branches.
Function
It supplies the quadriceps, the hip region and the lateral thigh.
Body system
Cardiovascular · paired (left and right)
FMA ID
FMA20802 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)

Key facts

  • Its descending branch runs with the nerve to vastus lateralis.

Structures next to the lateral circumflex femoral artery

The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:

References

  1. Foundational Model of Anatomy: Lateral circumflex femoral artery (FMA20802). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
  2. OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §20.1 Structure and Function of Blood Vessels. Rice University, 2022.
  3. 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.