Posterior tibial artery at a glance
- What it is
- The larger terminal branch of the popliteal artery in the posterior leg.
- Location
- It arises at the lower border of popliteus, descends deep to soleus, passes behind the medial malleolus and divides into the medial and lateral plantar arteries; it gives the fibular artery.
- Function
- It supplies the posterior and lateral compartments of the leg and the sole of the foot.
- Body system
- Cardiovascular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA43899 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Its pulse is felt behind the medial malleolus.
- Behind the medial malleolus it lies between the flexor digitorum longus and flexor hallucis longus tendons, with the tibial nerve behind it (Tom, Dick And Very Nervous Harry).
Clinical relevance
Its pulse is a standard check for peripheral artery disease.
Structures next to the posterior tibial artery
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Posterior tibial vein · cardiovascular
- Tibialis posterior · muscular
- Anterior tibial artery · cardiovascular
- Fibularis longus · muscular
- Fibula · skeletal
- Tibialis anterior · muscular
- Interosseous membrane of leg · skeletal
- Tibia · skeletal
- Small saphenous vein · cardiovascular
- Fibularis brevis · muscular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Posterior tibial artery (FMA43899). 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.