Proper palmar digital arteries

At a glance

English

Proper palmar digital arteries

Latin (TA2)

Arteriae digitales palmares propriae

System

Artery

Region

Upper limb

Side

Paired, left and right

About the proper palmar digital arteries

The proper palmar digital arteries are the final arterial channels of the palm side of the hand. Two run along each finger, one on either margin of the phalanges, so that the facing sides of neighbouring fingers are supplied by vessels that began as a single trunk. Each artery travels with a digital nerve of the same name, and the nerve lies nearer the palmar skin while the artery sits just behind it, on its dorsal side.

Most of them are the two end-branches of a common palmar digital artery, a trunk that leaves the superficial palmar arch and divide in two close to the knuckles, at about the level of the metacarpophalangeal joints. One is an exception: the vessel for the ulnar (medial) border of the little finger springs straight from the ulnar artery, beneath the small palmaris brevis muscle. The thumb and the radial side of the index finger are usually served by branches of the radial artery, the princeps pollicis and radialis indicis, rather than by this set.

Along the finger the two arteries are linked by small cross-branches near each interphalangeal joint, and at the tip they meet in a rich network in the fat of the pulp. Each also sends a few twigs round to the back of the finger. These link up with the small dorsal digital vessels and nourish the tissue over the middle and distal phalanges, including the nail bed and the matrix from which the nail grows.

Because each finger has two arteries joined end to end, a cut on one side rarely leaves the tip without blood, but injury to both sides can threaten the finger. The arteries run with the digital nerves, so a deep side cut that numbs a fingertip may have damaged the vessel as well. Every route of supply passes through the narrow base of the finger, which is why a tight ring on a swollen finger can cut off blood to the whole digit.

Course and supply

Arises from

Mostly from the common digital trunks of the superficial palmar arch, which each split in two near the metacarpophalangeal joints; the artery for the ulnar border of the little finger comes directly from the ulnar artery beneath palmaris brevis.

Ends in

Ends in an anastomotic network in the pulp of the fingertip, joined to its partner by small branches at the interphalangeal joints and to the dorsal digital arteries by dorsal twigs.

Supplies

Supplies the skin, pulp, tendon sheaths and joints along the palmar side of the fingers, and through its dorsal branches the back of the middle and distal phalanges and the nail matrix.