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Facial vein

Field	Value
Name	Facial vein
Latin	vena facialis anterior
Image	Gray557.png
Caption	Veins of the head and neck (facial vein labeles as Anterior facial at right center, at cheek, to right of masseter)
Image2	Gray1024.png
Caption2	Dissection, showing salivary glands of right side (facial vein labeled as Anterior facial vein at bottom right)
DrainsFrom	Angular vein
DrainsTo	Internal jugular vein
Artery	Facial artery

The facial vein (or anterior facial vein) is a relatively large vein in the human face. It commences at the side of the root of the nose and is a direct continuation of the angular vein where it also receives a small nasal branch.

It lies behind the facial artery and follows a less tortuous course. It receives blood from the external palatine vein before it either joins the anterior branch of the retromandibular vein to form the common facial vein, or drains directly into the internal jugular vein. There are valves in the facial vein. Its walls are not so flaccid as most superficial veins.

Path

From its origin it runs obliquely downward and backward, beneath the zygomaticus major muscle and zygomatic head of the levator labii superioris, descends along the anterior border and then on the superficial surface of the masseter, crosses over the body of the mandible, and passes obliquely backward, beneath the platysma and cervical fascia, superficial to the submandibular gland, the digastricus and stylohyoideus muscles.

Clinical significance

Thrombophlebitis of the facial vein, (inflammation of the facial vein with secondary clot formation) can result in pieces of an infected clot extending into the cavernous sinus, forming thrombophlebitis of the cavernous sinus. Infections may spread from the facial veins into the dural venous sinuses. Infections may also be introduced by facial lacerations and by bursting pimples in the areas drained by the facial vein.

Additional images

Image:Gray515.png|Bloodvessels of the eyelids seen from the front Image:Lateral head anatomy detail.jpg|Anatomy of the human head seen from the side Image:Head ap anatomy.jpg|Anatomy of the human head seen from the front Image:Slide5yyyy.JPG|Dissected human head (facial vein labeled) Image:Slide5BBB.JPG|Dissected human head (facial vein labeled)

References

(July 2010). "Ophthalmic and facial veins are not valveless". Clin Exp Ophthalmol.
(2018). "Clinically oriented anatomy". Wolters Kluwer.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

veins-of-the-head-and-neck face

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