Suprarenal vein at a glance
- What it is
- The vein draining the adrenal gland.
- Location
- The right drains directly into the inferior vena cava and the left into the left renal vein.
- Function
- It drains the adrenal gland.
- Body system
- Cardiovascular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA14349 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- The right vein is short and enters the inferior vena cava directly.
- Each adrenal gland is drained by a single main vein, unlike its three arteries.
Clinical relevance
Its short length makes right adrenalectomy technically challenging.
Structures next to the suprarenal vein
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Middle suprarenal artery · cardiovascular
- Inferior suprarenal artery · cardiovascular
- Adrenal gland · endocrine
- Splenic vein · cardiovascular
- Subcostal artery · cardiovascular
- Splenic artery · cardiovascular
- Posterior division of renal artery · cardiovascular
- Eleventh rib · skeletal
- Twelfth thoracic vertebra · skeletal
- Renal vein · cardiovascular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Suprarenal vein (FMA14349). 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.
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