Pulmonary trunk at a glance
- What it is
- The large artery arising from the right ventricle that carries blood to the lungs.
- Location
- It leaves the right ventricle at the pulmonary valve, starts in front of the aortic root, then ascends to the left of the ascending aorta and divides under the aortic arch, at about T4–T5, into right and left pulmonary arteries.
- Function
- It carries deoxygenated blood from the right ventricle to the lungs.
- Body system
- Cardiovascular · single, midline structure
- FMA ID
- FMA8612 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- The ligamentum arteriosum joins the start of the left pulmonary artery to the aortic arch.
- It is about 5 cm long and 3 cm wide and lies within the pericardium, sharing a sleeve of serous pericardium with the ascending aorta.
Clinical relevance
Patent ductus arteriosus is a persisting fetal link between it and the aorta.
Structures next to the pulmonary trunk
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Internal thoracic artery · cardiovascular
- Lobe of thymus · endocrine
- Posterior cusp of pulmonary valve · cardiovascular
- Trunk of coronary artery · cardiovascular
- Anterior cusp of pulmonary valve · cardiovascular
- Ascending aorta · cardiovascular
- Internal thoracic vein · cardiovascular
- Superior vena cava · cardiovascular
- Second costal cartilage · skeletal
- Conus artery · cardiovascular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Pulmonary trunk (FMA8612). 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.
Explore the whole body in the interactive 3D human anatomy model, or browse the A–Z list of human structures.