Popliteal Fossa: Contents – Gluteal Region and Posterior Thigh

00:01 to sit on that floor. So as I mentioned, the popliteal fossa contains all of the neurovascular structures that pass from the thigh to the leg. It contains the small saphenous vein as it pierces the popliteal fascia and enters into the popliteal vein. So here we can see the small saphenous vein that?s going to pass all the way up. We?ve cut it here to show, but we can then see it passing into the popliteal vein. See the popliteal vein here. We can also see an opening for the small saphenous vein just there. We can see we?ve got the popliteal artery and its associated branches, some important genicular branches that go and supply the knee joint. We can see the tibial and the common fibular nerves, the tibial nerve passing straight down, the common fibular nerve forming part of the superolateral border. We can see the posterior cutaneous nerve of the thigh running down in this region.

00:57 We can see popliteal lymph nodes, and it?s going to be full of fat. So in this lecture, we?ve looked at the gluteal region, we?ve looked at the muscles that make up the mass of the bulk of the gluteal region, gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, gluteus minimus, piriformis, gemelli, obturator internus, and quadratus femoris. And then we used piriformis as a landmark to look at some important neurovascular relations. We then quickly looked at the thigh in cross-section, the fasciae latae and how the intermuscular septae separated the thigh into anterior, posterior, and medial compartments. We then looked at the posterior thigh. We looked at the hamstrings, and we looked at biceps femoris, and also very briefly, the neurovascular relations. The popliteal fossa, we looked at the boundaries, the roof, the floor, and we just finished off by looking at the contents of this space.