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Trunk of coronary artery: anatomy, location and function

The main stems of the right and left coronary arteries, from their openings in the aortic sinuses to their first divisions. They carry all the arterial blood for the heart muscle; coronary flow occurs mainly during diastole, when the ventricular wall relaxes.

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Highlighted in the model: Trunk of coronary artery. Click any part to read about it, or switch off “Highlight topic” to see the whole body. 3D data: BodyParts3D, © The Database Center for Life Science, CC BY 4.0; meshes simplified and recoloured. The model is an adult male.

Trunk of coronary artery at a glance

What it is
The main stems of the right and left coronary arteries, from their openings in the aortic sinuses to their first divisions.
Location
The left coronary artery arises from the left aortic sinus and runs 1–2.5 cm between the pulmonary trunk and the left auricle before dividing into the anterior interventricular (left anterior descending) and circumflex arteries. The right coronary artery arises from the right aortic sinus and runs forward between the pulmonary trunk and right auricle into the right coronary (atrioventricular) groove.
Function
They carry all the arterial blood for the heart muscle; coronary flow occurs mainly during diastole, when the ventricular wall relaxes.
Body system
Cardiovascular · paired (left and right)
FMA ID
FMA3802 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)

Key facts

  • The right coronary artery gives the sinu-atrial nodal branch in about 60% of people and the atrioventricular nodal branch in about 80%.
  • The left coronary trunk sometimes divides into three, with an intermediate (ramus intermedius) branch between the two usual ones.

Clinical relevance

Significant narrowing of the left main coronary artery threatens most of the left ventricle and is usually treated by bypass surgery.

Structures next to the trunk of coronary artery

The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:

References

  1. Foundational Model of Anatomy: Trunk of coronary artery (FMA3802). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
  2. OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §20.1 Structure and Function of Blood Vessels. Rice University, 2022.
  3. 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.