0:04 the anatomy of the femoral sheath you're
0:06 not going to be a lot of use are you
0:07 because you haven't got
0:09 much else other than bones on you the
0:11 anatomy of the femoral sheath so it's
0:14 down here in the inguinal region
0:15 what is it
0:17 what's in it
0:20 and why is it useful
0:22 and what might i get it confused with
0:24 that's what we'll do because there's a
0:26 lot of similar words around there
0:29 and sam this isn't there isn't a lot you
0:31 can say about the femoral sheath so
0:33 don't make this a long one [Music]
0:42 the femoral
0:44 sheath what
0:47 is it well it's uh
0:49 it's connective tissue one of the unsung
0:53 heroes of the body right
0:55 is a bit of cling film that might be so
0:57 it's it's fascia
1:00 so we have facial sheets
1:01 around the body
1:03 which hold everything together
1:06 and help give us our shape and help hold
1:09 everything together help everything move
1:11 if you didn't have fascia
1:12 you'd be quite different
1:14 so it's it's fascia
1:18 and we need to look down here
1:26 taken the gastrointestinal tract out mostly
1:28 mostly
1:30 so we can see the bladder structures of
1:32 the pelvis there and we can see some
1:35 muscles of the posterior abdominal wall
1:37 major blood vessels
1:39 and muscles of the
1:42 anterolateral abdominal walls so fascia
1:43 fascia
1:46 the innermost muscle of the three layers
1:50 forming the abdominal wall is um
1:53 transversus abdominis and it is lined on
1:56 its internal surface by transversalis
1:58 fascia a sheet of connective tissue that
2:00 is not particularly stretchy and is
2:02 quite strong and tough and that sort of thing
2:03 thing
2:05 this big muscle here this big chunky muscle
2:06 muscle
2:09 is psoas major so this major is one of
2:16 and this muscle here is iliacus
2:18 and iliacus and so this major come
2:20 together they get called iliopsoas and
2:22 those muscles are also covered in fascia
2:24 fascia
2:25 which you would call the iliopsoas
2:27 fascia or the bit over the source the so
2:29 you see
2:30 the fascia is sensibly named so the
2:33 iliopsoas fascia is helping hold all of
2:35 those muscle units together
2:37 now here
2:39 this is the inguinal ligament this is
2:42 like the boundary between the abdominal
2:44 pelvic cavity the torso
2:47 and the lower limb
2:48 and some things have to pass into the
2:51 lower limb like blood vessels and nerves
2:53 and we'll get to those
2:56 so the inguinal ligament like acts as a
2:58 like as a strap there's a retinaculum
2:59 elsewhere in the body if you know about
3:01 that sort of thing so the inguinal
3:04 ligament ties everything down at the hip
3:06 for when we make
3:07 hip movements right it stops it all
3:09 slipping out
3:12 so what happens is is the transversalis
3:15 fascia and the iliopsoas fascia
3:18 huh it's like it's doing it already come
3:22 together to form a tube
3:25 the femoral sheath and that tube passes
3:29 deep to the inguinal ligament and into
3:31 the upper thigh except it's not a tube
3:34 it's more of a funnel that is it's
3:37 narrower at the bottom and wider at the top
3:38 top
3:39 and it
3:41 in the upper thigh
3:44 it ends by blending with the adventitia
3:46 the connective tissues of the blood
3:50 vessels and that is the femoral sheath
3:52 it's a fascial funnel
3:53 funnel
3:55 or tube
3:57 deep to the inguinal ligament
3:59 surrounding the blood vessels but not
4:01 the nerve it's about three to four
4:03 centimeters long
4:05 it's deep to the inguinal ligament oh by
4:07 the way see this fascia here this is the
4:09 fascia latae
4:11 the connective tissue the fascia
4:13 covering the muscles of the lower limb
4:16 and all the deeper vessels and stuff
4:18 and um the
4:19 the
4:21 femoral sheath is essentially deep to
4:23 the fasciae latae we'll talk about this
4:25 hole in other bits and bobs here in a moment
4:26 moment
4:30 okay so the femoral sheath
4:33 runs deep to the inguinal ligament
4:35 and is a connective tissue tube connecting
4:37 connecting
4:40 the torso with the lower limb
4:43 now there's more to it than that inside
4:45 the femoral sheath
4:48 it is divided up into three compartments
4:51 so there are three tubes within the tube
4:54 and what are in those tubes
4:56 the femoral artery
4:58 in the lateral compartment
5:00 the femoral vein
5:02 in the intermediate compartment in the
5:04 middle and then in the medial compartment
5:05 compartment
5:07 closest to this side
5:09 there is nothing
5:11 that's not true but it's an important
5:14 idea so the the medial compartment is
5:16 essentially it's like an empty space actually
5:18 actually
5:19 we see
5:21 we see lymphatics running in there we
5:23 can see a lymph node up there
5:25 so we get these deep
5:27 inguinal lymph nodes
5:29 the the lymph node
5:32 that deep inguinal lymph node one of
5:34 like the first ones the most inferior
5:36 ones that we find
5:37 in the
5:40 medial compartment of the femoral sheath
5:44 um gets referred to as uh the lymph node
5:46 of cloquet cloquet cloquet or rosen muller
5:48 muller
5:50 but we also have lymphatic vessels in
5:53 there if we're adding detail then in the
5:56 the lateral compartment
5:58 with the femoral artery we will also
6:01 find the femoral branch of the genito
6:02 femoral nerve
6:04 store that someplace for another day i'm
6:06 not going to come back to that all right
6:09 that's it then right femoral sheath and
6:10 ah there's more though isn't there what
6:12 about the femoral nerve okay so the
6:14 femoral artery what happens is is the
6:16 femoral artery is actually a
6:18 continuation of the external iliac
6:21 artery and when it passes deep to the
6:24 inguinal ligament we change its name and
6:26 it becomes the femoral artery likewise
6:29 the femoral vein when it passes deep to
6:31 the inguinal ligament we change its name
6:33 and becomes the
6:35 external iliac vein but what we don't
6:37 see on here is the nerve and that's kind
6:39 of important
6:41 i say that it's important because it's
6:43 easy to get confused around here but
6:45 here we go here's the left side look so
6:47 there's the femoral artery
6:50 vein and nerve so the nerve is lateral
6:52 the vein is medial
6:54 femoral nerve femoral artery femoral
6:56 vein so the femoral artery and the
6:59 femoral vein are within the femoral sheath
7:00 sheath
7:02 in their own compartments but the
7:04 femoral nerve is not
7:06 it passes deep to the inguinal ligament
7:09 but it is outside the femoral sheath it
7:12 is lateral to the femoral sheath
7:14 what is the purpose of this connective
7:16 tissue well
7:19 we have as i said we when we
7:21 move this joint we have these major
7:23 blood vessels passing from the torso to
7:26 the lower limb we do not want them to be kinked
7:26 kinked
7:29 like a hose pipe or folded or impeded in
7:31 any way because they're supplying blood
7:33 to all these muscles of the lower limb
7:34 and draining it back again so the
7:36 femoral sheath
7:38 lets these blood vessels slide up and
7:41 down as we move the hip joint that's the
7:42 first one now
7:43 now
7:45 add a little bit more detail
7:47 you remember i said there were three compartments
7:48 compartments
7:50 to the femoral sheath and
7:52 and
7:54 the lateral compartment holds the
7:56 femoral artery the intermediate
7:58 compartment in the middle holds the
8:00 femoral vein and the medial compartment
8:02 has some lymph nodes but is otherwise
8:06 empty now that empty part that empty tube
8:07 tube
8:10 that gets called the femoral canal
8:13 so don't mix up femoral canal and sheath
8:15 which is very easy to do so the
8:17 connective tissue is the sheath that
8:19 makes sense the connective tissue makes
8:21 a sheath right
8:24 the space within the sheath is the canal
8:26 because the canal is a space
8:29 now the reason the femoral canal exists is
8:30 is
8:31 partly because of that sliding up and
8:32 down thing
8:34 but also if
8:35 if
8:38 the blood flow from the lower limb increases
8:39 increases
8:44 the vein can dilate so veins um
8:45 veins don't have muscular walls they can
8:47 stretch more easily than arteries right
8:50 so if more blood is coming back the
8:53 femoral vein can dilate into that empty
8:55 space of the femoral canal there's room
8:57 to which for it to stretch out into right
8:58 right
9:01 also remember that while the blood
9:04 inside arteries is arterial pressure
9:06 obviously it's at high pressure the
9:08 blood inside the veins is at low
9:10 pressure and this blood is being drawn
9:12 back from the upper limb all the way up
9:14 the torso to the heart which is a long ways
9:15 ways
9:18 it's more being sucked up than pushed up right
9:19 right
9:22 which means that if you were to
9:26 increase the pressure inside your torso
9:29 through a valsalva maneuver you know
9:30 straight or if you're lifting something
9:32 and straining or
9:35 you're voiding your bowels or whatever
9:37 if you increase the pressure inside the
9:40 torso then it's going to impede the
9:43 venous return into the torso because the
9:45 pressure will be too high and that means
9:47 that the femoral canal then gives some
9:55 all right so that's the relevant anatomy
9:56 but there's more
9:59 what other terms or phrases around here
10:01 might we confuse these terms with okay well
10:02 well
10:04 um the other thing here is the femoral triangle
10:10 so the femoral triangle describes this
10:12 region the femoral triangle is made from
10:15 the borders of the inguinal ligament the
10:18 sartorius muscle and abductor longus so
10:20 the femoral sheath
10:22 is within the femoral triangle
10:24 the femoral sheath is the connective
10:27 tissue the femoral triangle is that
10:29 triangle that we've defined there
10:31 but there are other canals right let's
10:32 go back to the
10:33 other one
10:36 the inguinal ligament
10:38 also has an inguinal canal nearby so the
10:40 inguinal canal is different to the
10:44 femoral canal the inguinal canal is made
10:46 from the muscles of the abdominal wall
10:48 curving around and making a tube so it's
10:50 a muscular tube
10:54 it is superior to the inguinal ligament and
10:55 and
10:56 it carries the spermatic cord and that
10:58 sort of thing so it links the contents
11:00 of the scrotum with the
11:03 abdominal pelvic cavity right so the
11:05 femoral canal
11:07 is within the femoral sheath
11:10 it runs deep to the inguinal ligament so
11:12 it connects the torso with the lower limb
11:14 limb
11:15 the inguinal canal
11:18 is superior to the
11:21 inguinal ligament it's a muscular tube
11:23 and it connects the scrotum or the labia majora
11:25 majora
11:30 with the abdominal pelvic cavity okay
11:33 we can see part of that here
11:35 i said this was the fascialata
11:36 the connective tissue the fascia
11:39 covering of the lower limb
11:41 uh the major vein that we can see here
11:43 superficial to that is the great
11:44 saphenous vein
11:47 big superficial vein of the lower limb
11:49 there is an opening here this is the
11:52 saphenous opening or the saphenous ring
11:54 and the great saphenous vein passes
11:56 through that opening so that's how it
11:59 gets from superficial to the fascialata
12:03 to deep to the fascia later and there it
12:05 drains into
12:07 the femoral vein
12:09 if the femoral sheath has continued down
12:11 to that point then the great saphenous
12:13 vein will also go through the femoral
12:16 sheath to get to the femoral vein so
12:18 saphenous opening
12:20 but those are the things that you might
12:22 um well worth knowing about and get
12:24 confused in that sort of thing the
12:26 femoral canal
12:28 also has a femoral ring
12:31 which is where we see it opening
12:41 hernia
12:43 so um bowel
12:45 bowel
12:48 because of the high pressures in here can
12:49 can
12:51 find itself find its way out of
12:52 of
12:55 the abdominal cavity through weaknesses
12:57 the femoral
12:59 canal within the femoral sheath is a
13:02 potential route for a loop of bowel to
13:04 pass inferiorly
13:08 deep to the inguinal ligament and into
13:10 the femoral triangle
13:14 right so if you if you palpate a mass in
13:16 the femoral triangle
13:19 femoral hernia whereas the an inguinal hernia
13:20 hernia
13:23 will pass through the inguinal canal so
13:25 we'll be in a different place right so
13:27 the femoral canal and the femoral sheath
13:30 are relevant to a femoral hernia the
13:35 bowel pushing through that space um also
13:39 if you
13:42 want to access the heart
13:44 you could
13:48 put a wire a catheter a cannula whatever
13:50 into the femoral artery
13:53 that would then pass to the aorta so you
13:56 could access the aorta and the left side
14:01 of the heart or here you could put a
14:02 wire into
14:05 the femoral vein that would pass to the
14:08 inferior vena cava and you can access
14:10 the right side of the heart
14:13 these blood vessels are large
14:14 very superficial so they're pretty easy
14:17 to access
14:19 and you can then access
14:21 the thorax
14:24 also if you are assessing the blood flow
14:27 to the lower limb this is where you find
14:29 the femoral pulse
14:30 so these blood vessels are formed
14:31 passing through the femoral sheath the
14:33 femoral sheath is part of their function
14:35 so the femoral sheath is part of that
14:37 relevant and useful anatomy all right
14:39 there you go that's the anatomy of the
14:42 femoral sheath it's connective tissue
14:45 and we talked about the femoral canal
14:47 which is a space
14:49 and the femoral sheath has three spaces
14:51 in it and we looked at the blood vessels
14:53 and what have you and
14:55 we linked it up to other things nearby
14:58 that we might
14:59 confused with why have you got cobwebs
15:01 on you
15:03 um anyway see told you i couldn't talk about
15:04 about
15:07 it for that long the femoral sheath and
15:08 stuff in the femoral triangle femoral canal
15:10 canal
15:13 stop by see you next week [Music]