Corpus: External carotid artery
1. Definition
The external carotid artery, or ECA for short, is a branch of the common carotid artery. It supplies most of the soft tissues of the head and neck as well as parts of the bony skull and the dura mater with arterial blood.
2. Course
The external carotid artery begins at the carotid triangle opposite the upper edge of the thyroid cartilage (cartilago thyroidea) and runs cranially on the stylopharyngeus muscle in the direction of the retromandibular fossa. In the region of the angle of the jaw, it gives off the facial artery. It continues cranially through the parotid gland (glandula parotidea) and divides into its terminal branches at about the level of the mandibular collum.
Externally, the external carotid artery is covered by the skin, the superficial cervical fascia, the platysma, the deep cervical fascia and the anterior border of the sternocleidomastoid muscle.
3. Branches
A distinction is made between a ventral, medial and dorsal group of vascular branches of the external carotid artery, as well as their terminal branches.
3.1. Ventral group
The pulse of the facial artery can be felt in front of the masseter muscle at the edge of the lower jaw.
3.2. Medial group
- Ascending pharyngeal artery
3.3. Dorsal group
- Sternocleidomastoid branch
- Occipital artery
- Posterior auricular artery
3.4. Terminal branches
4. Offshoot variants
Due to common vascular trunks of the lingual artery with its neighbouring vessels, some outlet variants can arise:
- Thyrolingual trunk
- Lingualfacial trunk
- Thyrolingualfacial trunk