A study of anomalous origin of medial circumflex femoral artery and its significance

Abstract

Background: Femoral artery, a branch of external iliac artery, is the blood supply to the anterior compartment of the thigh. Its branch, medial circumflex femoral artery (MCFA), supplies the head and neck of femur, adductor muscles and the acetabular pad of fat. By virtue of its anatomical location, usually there is a high risk of severing the artery after trauma or during total hip arthroplastic surgeries. Methods: We studied variations in the femoral artery and its branches in 100 femoral triangles from 50 properly embalmed and formalin-fixed human cadavers, from Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences, Sri Padmavathi Medical College for Women, Tirupati, and NRI Institute of Medical Sciences, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India. Results: We observed that the MCFA arose from the common femoral artery in 10% of the cases and from the deep femoral artery in 88% of the cases and was absent in 2% of the cases. Conclusions: The MCFA variability must be taken into account by surgeons, especially during orthopaedic interventions in the region of the hip to prevent iatrogenic injury to the circulation of the femoral head.