superior vena cava
Sign in to saveAlso known as SVC, anterior vena cava
one of two venous trunks bringing deoxygenated blood back to the heart
Key facts
- Precursor
- Common cardinal veins
- Drains from
- Left and right brachiocephalic veins
- Source
- Brachiocephalic vein , azygos vein
- Drains to
- Right atrium
- Latin
- vena cava superior, vena maxima
- Mesh
- D014683
- Ta98
- A12.3.03.001
via Wikipedia infobox
Research
18,500 papers- Malignant Superior Vena Cava Syndrome: A Scoping Review.Journal of thoracic oncology : official publication of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer · 2023
- Superior vena cava syndrome.VASA. Zeitschrift fur Gefasskrankheiten · 2020
- Clinical practice. Superior vena cava syndrome with malignant causes.The New England journal of medicine · 2007
- Inferior and Superior Vena Cava Reconstruction.Cardiovascular and interventional radiology · 2024
- Superior vena cava syndrome-induced hemoptysis.The American journal of the medical sciences · 2023
via PubMed
~4 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The superior vena cava (SVC) is the superior of the two venae cavae, the great venous trunks that return deoxygenated blood from the systemic circulation to the right atrium of the heart. It is a large-diameter (24 mm) short length (~7 cm) vein that receives venous return from the upper half of the body, above the diaphragm. Venous return from the lower half, below the diaphragm, flows through the inferior vena cava. The SVC is located in the anterior right superior mediastinum. It is the typical site of central venous access via a central venous catheter or a peripherally inserted central catheter. Mentions of "the cava" without further specification usually refer to the SVC.
Structure
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “superior vena cava” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.