Branches of the Internal Iliac Artery

00:01 So let's have a look at some of the branches coming from the internal iliac artery.

00:06 Here we can see the right common iliac artery as it's entering into the pelvis.

00:10 We can see it's giving rise here to the right internal iliac artery and the external we can see coursing out to the left hand side of the screen.

00:18 Here we can then see the separation into the anterior and the posterior divisions.

00:24 And there's really three branches we should be familiar with coming from this posterior division.

00:29 First of all, we have the iliolumbar artery, which causes around and supplies muscles like iliacus.

00:35 We have the lateral sacral artery.

00:36 We can see here supplying parts of the pelvic floor.

00:39 We'll come to that later on in a different topic.

00:41 And we can also see the superior gluteal artery here.

00:45 This is going to pass through the greater sciatic foramen and supply muscles within the gluteal region of the lower limb.

00:53 If we then look at the anterior division, we can see the umbilical arteries extending forward towards the anterior abdominal wall.

01:00 This will give rise to the superior vesical artery which supplies the bladder.

01:04 We have the obturator artery, which passes forwards through the obturator foramen to supply the medial compartment of the thigh.

01:12 We also then have the uterine artery in the female, and we have the vaginal or the inferior vesical artery in the female or male respectively.

01:21 They supply the vagina or the inferior surface of the bladder.

01:25 We also have the middle rectal artery that's coming away from this anterior division.

01:30 The inferior gluteal artery and also the internal pudendal artery.

01:35 And these last two, the inferior gluteal and internal pudendal, these are the terminal branches of that anterior division.

01:43 Now, let's have a look at these branches in a bit more detail.

01:47 So the internal iliac artery is going to give rise to an anterior division.

01:51 That anterior division gives rise to the umbilical artery, which gives rise to superior vesical arteries that supplies the superior surface of the bladder.

02:01 It will also have the obturator artery and the vaginal and the inferior visceral artery if it's a female or male respectively.

02:10 Coming off in the male we have the artery of the ductus deferens so the inferior visceral artery will give the artery of the ductus deferens and this will then give off some prosthetic branches a well.

02:20 So the ductus deferens and the prostate are supplied by the anterior division via this inferior vesical artery.

02:27 The viginal artery will just go and supply the vagina, as we'll see later on, does form some anastomosis with the uterine artery.

02:35 And here we can see that uterine artery within the females anterior division.

02:40 The uterine artery, as I just mentioned, will form some anastomosis with the vaginal artery via various vaginal branches.

02:49 The anterior division also gives rise to the middle rectal artery and the inferior gluteal artery.

02:55 And these go on to supply the rectum or the middle portion of the rectum.

02:59 And also the inferior gluteal artery will go on to supply muscles within the gluteal region of the thigh.

03:06 The terminal branch of the anterior division is the inferior gluteal artery and the internal pudendal artery.

03:12 Now, this can be incredibly variable within cadavers.

03:16 So it does depend on your nomenclature of how you're organizing these branches.

03:22 But really, you'll see that the final two terminal branches if each of these umbilical, obturator, uterine, vaginal, middle, rectal, they'll all come off and go to the respective organs.

03:34 It will then end by terminating with these two branches - the inferior gluteal artery which passes through the lesser sciatic foramen and the internal pudendal artery.

03:43 We'll come back to the internal pudendal artery later on as it's important artery that supply structures have in the perineum.

03:51 The posterior division gives rise to as I mentioned these three important branches: the iliolumbal artery, the lateral sacral artery, and the superior gluteal artery.