Middle cardiac vein at a glance
- Also called
- Posterior interventricular vein
- What it is
- A coronary vein running in the posterior interventricular groove.
- Location
- It starts near the apex, ascends in the posterior interventricular groove beside the posterior interventricular artery and drains into the coronary sinus near its end.
- Function
- It drains the posterior parts of both ventricles and the interventricular septum.
- Body system
- Cardiovascular · single, midline structure
- FMA ID
- FMA4713 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- It is also called the posterior interventricular vein.
- It is the second largest tributary of the coronary sinus after the great cardiac vein.
Structures next to the middle cardiac vein
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Posterior interventricular branch of coronary artery · cardiovascular
- Posterior vein of ventricle · cardiovascular
- Anterolateral head of lateral papillary muscle of ventricle · cardiovascular
- Cavity of ventricle · cardiovascular
- Wall of ventricle · cardiovascular
- Anterior papillary muscle of ventricle · cardiovascular
- Trunk of anterior interventricular branch of coronary artery · cardiovascular
- Anterior leaflet of mitral valve · cardiovascular
- Anterior interventricular vein · cardiovascular
- Posterior leaflet of tricuspid valve · cardiovascular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Middle cardiac vein (FMA4713). 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.
Related anatomy
Explore the whole body in the interactive 3D human anatomy model, or browse the A–Z list of human structures.