Puncturing the pulseless femoral artery: a simple technique that uses palpation of anatomic landmarks
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S F Millward1, B E Burbridge, G Luna
1Department of Radiological Sciences, Ottawa Civic Hospital, Ontario, Canada.
Purpose:
The authors report a simple technique in which palpation of anatomic landmarks is used to localize the pulseless common femoral artery.
Materials And Methods:
A finger is placed immediately lateral to the pubic tubercle and inferior to the inguinal ligament to palpate the point allowing the most posterior depression. Anatomically, this depression lies between the iliopsoas muscle laterally and the pectineus muscle medially. The femoral vein lies in the floor of this depression, and 1.5 cm lateral to the depression lies the femoral artery.
Results:
This anatomic relationship and its usefulness for locating the common femoral artery were verified by puncture and dissection of nine cadaveric groins and successful puncture of 19 pulseless arteries of 17 patients.
Conclusion:
The described technique was found to be quick, simple, and reliable and is now the authors' method of choice for puncturing the pulseless femoral artery.