Superior intercostal vein at a glance
- What it is
- A vein draining the upper intercostal spaces.
- Location
- The left drains the second and third (sometimes fourth) intercostal veins, crosses the aortic arch and empties into the left brachiocephalic vein. The right drains the second to fourth spaces into the azygos vein.
- Function
- It drains the upper intercostal spaces.
- Body system
- Cardiovascular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA4797 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- The left superior intercostal vein crosses the arch of the aorta lateral to the vagus nerve and medial to the phrenic nerve.
Structures next to the superior intercostal vein
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Iliocostalis cervicis · muscular
- Serratus posterior superior · muscular
- Longissimus cervicis · muscular
- Splenius cervicis · muscular
- Intervertebral disk of second thoracic vertebra · skeletal
- Third thoracic vertebra · skeletal
- Intervertebral disk of third thoracic vertebra · skeletal
- Second thoracic vertebra · skeletal
- Rhomboid minor · muscular
- Semispinalis cervicis · muscular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Superior intercostal vein (FMA4797). 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.