Hello all this is Dr Alsup and in this video we will be discussing how to identify
the structures in the anterior compartment of the thigh, so kind of key word here is anterior.
As I tend to do, we will start with more superficial dissections and make our way
to deeper dissections, but there is an awful lot to see in this more superficial dissection.
So this is an anterior view of the thigh. I can see kind of where the bump of the patella
would be maybe a little bit kind of this region right here and but I will say that this is a
little skewed or a little turned laterally but you can still see all the major players
in the anterior thigh. But since this is turned a little laterally this affords a really nice view
of the iliotibial tract or band, so often you hear it at the IT band. And the iliotibial band
is a thickening of the deep fascia of the thigh the depression the thigh is called the fascia lata.
The gluteus maximus which is going to be posterior here has a dominant distal attachment
to this portion of the fascia to the IT band as well as this muscle right here which is not
one you have to identify but since it is here, this is the tensor fasciae latae or the TFL so
that's what this muscle here is kind of superior laterally located. But now let's turn our attention
to the more anterior muscles and we will start with the longest muscle of the body, I'm going
to outline it here and we're going to lose a bit of its view but it most certainly will continue
to travel medially, and this is the sartorius muscle. The sartorius looks like a long ribbon
running superficially over the muscles of the anterior compartment. It extends from the
coxal bone all the way to the medial tibia so again even though we can only see a bit of it
here it will extend all the way down to about here-ish. And again sartorius is more
superficially placed in this compartment. Deep to the sartorius you can see three of the four
parts of the quadriceps femoris muscle so that's going to be in this general region right here.
And it is the quadriceps femoris muscle that is the dominant muscle of the anterior
compartment of the thigh. You can see all of these muscles share a common distal quadriceps tendon.
Wherein the patella or that kneecap will form, and from the patella to the tibial tuberosity
you're going to have what is called the patellar
ligament which is really just an extension of that quadriceps femoris tendon
but in essence since it's going from bone to bone, so from the patella to the tibial tuberosity
it often has a different name. So if you're looking more superiorly it's more commonly called the
quadriceps tendon if you're looking more distally it's often called the patellar ligament but really
composed of the same thing. Now let's differentiate the parts of the quadriceps muscle.
Running right down the middle here, so all the way from up here, is going to be the rectus femoris.
And on either side are the two vasti muscles, laterally you will have the vastus lateralis
I know I'm looking more laterally because the IT band is right here,
and medially we will have the vastus medialis. And the fourth part of the quadriceps muscle is
deep to the rectus femoris so we cannot see it in this superficial dissection
but we can here so the vastus intermedius is going to be visible here in this deeper
dissection as the rectus femoris has been cut here as well as the sartorius muscle
has been cut so it really allows for us to see some of the the more some of the deeper structures.
This is a much straighter anterior view so the IT band is going to be not quite as easily seen
but you can see it laterally right here. Again the sartorius has been cut in order to see a clearer
view of the deeper structures and one of those deeper structures is going to be the iliopsoas
muscle. And it's not particularly, it's not as easy to see when you're looking in the superior
lower limb because it becomes more tenderness it's not a particularly
wide muscle. It does form part of the floor of the femoral triangle which we know we are at because
you can see all this large neurovasculature right here so it's going to form part of that floor
right there. I also know this is iliopsoas because recall that the iliopsoas is formed by the iliacus
as well as the psoas major which you can see really clearly right here.
Remember we talked about the psoas major when we were looking at the lumbar plexus
very close to that vertebral column. So those two muscles iliacus and psoas major
combine and head together to distally attach to the lesser trochanter of the femur
and once it gets to the lower limb it really changes its name to the iliopsoas and so you can
see a bit of it right here. Again you can see the vastus lateralis as well as the vastus medialis,
even with the rectus femoris removed so here's that portion of the rectus
femoris here's a little cut portion as well and that allows us to see the vastus intermedius.
One last thing to touch on is the neurovasculature of the anterior compartment of the thigh
now we have already dissected the femoral triangle region so hopefully this is a bit of a review
recall from medial to lateral you're going to have and remember the mnemonic
VAN I really should have kind of fixed this here so VAN
is from medial to lateral how this is organized. So you're going to have the femoral vein,
the femoral artery, and the femoral nerve organized in that order.
The femoral artery will be the main arterial supply of the entire lower limb whereas the
femoral nerve will only provide motor innervation to the anterior compartment of the thigh although
its cutaneous innervation has a slightly larger expanse. Just of note here, these are
the muscles, let me outline it here, these are the muscles of the anterior compartment of the thigh,
and we can clearly see some of the muscles of the medial compartment
or adductor compartment as well which we will discuss in the upcoming video. But I do want to
note that from an anterior view you can see both the anterior compartment as well as the medial
compartment so note that you do have two different compartments that are visible from this view.
Excellent thank you for your time and attention here and I hope you have a great rest of your day