What is Facial Artery?

The facial artery is a blood vessel that supplies blood to certain structures in the face. It was once referred to as the external maxillary artery; this is an older term, however, which has since fallen out of use. The facial artery is one of the branches of the external carotid artery.

As one of the major arteries in the head and neck, the external carotid artery has eight branches, with the facial artery being one of them.

It is one of the five branches of the external carotid artery that originate in the carotid triangle, which is part of the anterior or frontal triangle of the neck. The facial artery travels forward and upward in this space.

The facial artery is one of the five branches of the external carotid artery.

From the carotid triangle, the facial artery rises slightly above the lingual artery. Then it goes in an inclined way under the digastric and stylohyoid muscle, which are muscles under the jaw or lower jaw. The branch of the mandible protects the facial artery in this section of its course.

The blood vessel arches over these small muscles to pass the posterior surface of the paired submandibular salivary glands, or submaxillary glands, below the floor of the mouth.

The facial artery rises again, this time over the lower jaw in the region where the masseter is located, a muscle that is involved in chewing or chewing food.

It continues its ascent up the side of the nose to the orbit, the socket where the eye is located. This is where the facial artery ends and becomes the angular artery.

There are eight branches of the facial artery. They are divided into two categories: cervical branches and facial branches. The cervical branches are those found in the neck.

They are formed by the ascending palatal artery, the tonsillar branch, the submental artery and the glandular branches. The latter, in particular, consists of three or four vessels and is sometimes called submaxillary branches because it supplies the submaxillary glands.

The facial branches include the aforementioned angular artery, which gets its name from its sloping arrangement, as it is distributed through the skin and muscles on the side of the nose. The other three facial branches are the inferior labial artery, the superior labial artery, and the lateral nasal artery.

The upper and lower labial artery meet in the mouth, the latter being the larger of the two blood vessels.

The lateral nasal artery is sometimes referred to as the nasal branch lateral to the nasal muscle, as it supplies this circular muscle of the nose.

The facial artery is one of the branches of the external carotid artery, which supplies oxygenated blood to the brain.