Vasculature of the Abdominal Region (Nursing)

00:01 Alright, a little bit about the blood vessels in this area.

00:07 We're mostly talking about the abdominal aorta here.

00:10 So just after the descending aorta crosses through the diaphragm, it becomes the abdominal or aorta.

00:19 And it has a lot of important branches.

00:21 The first is called the celiac trunk.

00:25 Whenever you see trunk and anatomy, that means it's branching almost right away.

00:31 It's just like the trunk of a tree.

00:33 It's very short and then has many many branches off of it rather than being a very long artery itself.

00:39 And so the celiac trunk is essentially broken up almost immediately into major arteries such as the splenic artery, the hepatic artery, and the left gastric artery, supplying areas like the spleen, liver, and stomach.

00:57 We also have branches off of the aorta that aren't going to digestive things such as the renal arteries.

01:06 We also have the superior mesenteric artery.

01:09 Mesentery is this fat fold that basically goes out and attaches to organs within the abdominal cavity.

01:19 We also have gonadal arteries which go to gonads, whether they're testes or ovaries.

01:26 And much like the renal arteries, because they're not really related to these GI structures we've been talking about.

01:33 Renal and gonadal arteries are paired meaning there's a left and right.

01:36 Whereas there's just the one celiac trunk and just the one superior mesenteric artery coming off of the aorta.

01:45 And where there's a superior, there's an inferior.

01:47 So there is further down and inferior mesenteric artery, And the superior and inferior mesenteric arteries are what supplying the majority of these intestines that we've been talking about.

02:01 So they're extremely important for keeping the gut alive.

02:05 Eventually the aorta ends or bifurcates into the common iliac arteries, which themselves were bifurcate again into external iliac artery which will go on to become the femoral artery, a major artery of the lower limb and internal iliac artery, which will supply a lot of structures in the pelvis.

02:27 The veins, well, there is the inferior vena cava, which parallels the aorta in this area.

02:33 And it is training systemic venous blood from all of the lower limbs and pelvis and many structures in the abdomen as well up toward the heart.

02:45 But we have that special venous system here when we're talking about the abdomen and digestion.

02:53 So we also have coming from the intestinal area, the superior mesenteric vein, the inferior mesenteric vein, and the splenic vein.

03:04 And these veins are actually the veins draining the GI tract in this area.

03:09 So they're carrying a lot of nutrient rich blood but also blood that might have drugs or toxins or other things so that blood doesn't go directly into systemic circulation.

03:21 Instead, these three structures drain into the portal vein to go into the liver so that they can be metabolized and broken down before exiting the liver via the hepatic veins into the IVC to get out into the regular systemic circulation.