Subclavian vein at a glance
- What it is
- The large vein draining the upper limb into the brachiocephalic vein.
- Location
- It continues from the axillary vein at the lateral border of the first rib, passes in front of scalenus anterior and joins the internal jugular vein to form the brachiocephalic vein.
- Function
- It drains the upper limb and part of the neck.
- Body system
- Cardiovascular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA4763 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- It is commonly used for central venous catheters.
- It is separated from the subclavian artery by scalenus anterior and lies in front of it.
Clinical relevance
Subclavian catheterisation can cause pneumothorax.
Structures next to the subclavian vein
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Subclavian artery · cardiovascular
- Subclavius · muscular
- First rib · skeletal
- Costocervical trunk · cardiovascular
- Second rib · skeletal
- Superior intercostal artery · cardiovascular
- First posterior intercostal artery · cardiovascular
- Clavicle · skeletal
- Transverse cervical artery · cardiovascular
- Thyrocervical trunk · cardiovascular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Subclavian vein (FMA4763). 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.