Deep femoral artery branching by MDCT in a Turkish population and its potential clinical implications

The deep femoral artery and its branches are vital for the arterial circulation of the lower extremity. The aim of the current study is to obtain morphometric and morphological data on the deep femoral artery and its branches and to investigate their clinical importance in the Turkish population. Morphometric measurements of the deep femoral artery and femoral artery were performed. The diameters of the femoral artery and deep femoral artery were measured in the axial plane. Classification was made according to the size of these diameters. A morphological classification was obtained by examining the variations of the deep femoral artery branches. The distance from the origin of the deep femoral artery to the midpoint of the inguinal ligament was 39.56 ± 8.52 mm, and the distances from the origin of the lateral circumflex femoral artery to the medial circumflex femoral artery were 17.15 ± 4.79 mm and 12.52 ± 4.58 mm, respectively. The study results show that there was a significant difference between genders in terms of the diameters measured. In the classification made by using the diameters, Type D (39%) had the highest rate, whereas Type C had the lowest rate (7.3%). According to the morphological classification, Type I (52.1%) was the most common in all individuals, and Type V and Type VII (2.3%) were the least common. Our study includes both morphometric and morphological information about the femoral artery and deep femoral artery of the Turkish population. We consider that the current study will be useful for cardiologists, interventional radiologists, orthopedists, and regional surgeons in clinical practice.