Ascending cervical artery

Last revised by Francis Deng on 27 Feb 2024

The ascending cervical artery is a paired artery from the lower neck that supplies deep neck muscles and most commonly originates from the inferior thyroid artery.

Gross anatomy

Location

The ascending cervical artery travels upwards in the neck, lateral and parallel to the vertebral artery, within the prevertebral fascia (deep layer of the deep cervical fascia).

Origin

The ascending cervical artery most often arises from the inferior thyroid artery (72%), followed by the thyrocervical trunk (11%), suprascapular artery (8%), transverse cervical artery (8%), superficial cervical artery (7%), and subclavian artery (2%) 3.

Termination

The artery ends with anastomoses to the vertebral, ascending pharyngeal, and occipital arteries.

Supply

It contributes small spinal branches into the intervertebral foramina of the neck as well as multiple small muscular branches to the lateral deep muscles of the neck.

Relations

It runs lateral to the longus colli/capitis muscles and anterior to the anterior scalene muscle.

It is posterior to the carotid artery and anterolateral to the vertebral artery.

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