Marginal artery of colon at a glance
- Also called
- Marginal artery of Drummond
- What it is
- A continuous arterial arcade along the mesenteric border of the colon linking the superior and inferior mesenteric arteries.
- Location
- It runs close to the colon wall, formed by anastomoses of the ileocolic, right colic, middle colic, left colic and sigmoid arteries, and gives off vasa recta.
- Function
- It provides collateral blood flow along the colon and supplies the colonic wall through the vasa recta.
- Body system
- Cardiovascular · single, midline structure
- FMA ID
- FMA14831 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Also called the marginal artery of Drummond.
Clinical relevance
Weak points of the marginal artery, such as Griffiths' point near the splenic flexure, make the colon vulnerable to ischemia.
Structures next to the marginal artery of colon
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Inferior mesenteric vein · cardiovascular
- Inferior pancreaticoduodenal artery · cardiovascular
- Superior mesenteric artery · cardiovascular
- Ileocolic artery · cardiovascular
- Superior mesenteric vein · cardiovascular
- Transverse colon · digestive
- Anterior inferior pancreaticoduodenal artery · cardiovascular
- Posterior inferior pancreaticoduodenal artery · cardiovascular
- Ascending lumbar vein · cardiovascular
- Duodenum · digestive
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Marginal artery of colon (FMA14831). 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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