Corpus: Superior medial genicular artery

The superior medial artery is a usually weak branch of the popliteal artery that supplies the knee.

The superior medial artery runs around the femur in front of the semimembranosus muscle and the semitendinosus muscle above the medial femoral epicondyle. It crosses under the tendon of the adductor magnus muscle. It then splits into two branches.

One branch supplies the vastus medialis muscle and anastomoses with the descending geniculate artery and the inferior medial geniculate artery. The other branch bifurcates on the surface of the femur and supplies the knee joint. It anastomoses with the superior lateral genic artery. Both branches feed the collateral network of the knee joint (genicular anastomosis).