Arterial supply of the head and neck

Why this matters

Every structure a dentist touches is fed by one of three vessels that leave the top of the aortic arch, and almost all of it by one of them - the external carotid artery. That single fact explains why a lower molar abscess, a maxillary tooth that hurts for no dental reason, a bleed in the floor of the mouth, a lost eye after a facial injection and a stroke in a 45-year-old can all be arterial stories told in the same territory.

The big picture

Three vessels leave the aortic arch: brachiocephalic trunk, left common carotid, left subclavian. The common carotid ascends in the carotid sheath with the internal jugular vein and the vagus, and divides in the upper neck into two arteries with completely different jobs. The internal carotid gives no constant branch in the neck, enters the carotid canal, crosses the foramen lacerum region, runs through the cavernous sinus and ends by supplying the brain and the eye.

The 15 cards in this lesson

1. 01One arch, three branches - most of the time
2. 02Reading the arch on a diagram
3. 03The common carotid, the sheath and the bifurcation
4. 04Two receptors at the fork: sinus and body
5. 05The neck, the chair and what the evidence does not say
6. 06The internal carotid: four parts, one destination
7. 07Clinical alert — in the lesson
8. 08The external carotid: eight branches and what each supplies
9. 09Reading the external carotid on a dissection
10. 10How to hold the eight - and what the mnemonic is not
11. 11The maxillary artery: the artery of the teeth
12. 12External versus internal carotid, side by side
13. 13The subclavian and the vertebral artery
14. 14The head is one network: anastomoses that matter
15. 15Clinical alert — in the lesson

You have got it when

You can trace blood from the left ventricle to a lower first molar and to the palate, naming every vessel on the way; state the three branches of the arch and how often that pattern is actually present; explain why the carotid bifurcation is not reliably at C4 and why the two sides of one patient often differ; name the four parts of the internal carotid in the official nomenclature and say what the cervical part…