THE BLOOD SUPPLY OF THE AUDITORY OSSICLES / 解剖学报

ABSTRACT

The arteries of auditory ossicles of 40 ears from 20 full term feotuses weredemonstrated by injection of liquid latex containing a small amount of Chinese inkthrough common carotid arteries.We found that the malleus and incus possess thenutrient arteries as well as the mucosal arteries,whereas the stapes gets its bloodsupply from the mucosal arteries only.The anterior tympanic artery is the principal source of blood supply of the mal-leus and the incus.It enters the middle ear through the petrotympanic fissure andramifies into five branchesmalleolar artery,incudal artery,superior branch,posteriorbranch and chorda tympani branch.The malleolar and incudal arteries are nutrientarteries.The vascular network in mucosa over the manubrium mallei is supplied bythe branches of the deep auricular and stylomastoid arteries over the tympanic mem-brane.The mucosal arteries of the long crus of the incus is supplied by the smallvessels given off by incudal artery before entering the nutrient foramen,the finevessels from the arteries around the chorda tympani and the vessels passing to it fromstapes.The blood supply of the stapes is derived from the vessels located in two majorareasone from the facial canal and the other from the promontory.The arteries tothe stapes from the promontory vascular plexus are the artery of the head of thestapes,the artery of the posterior crus and the artery of the anterior crus.The for-mer two vessels have not been reported previously.In the facial canal there are thestylomastoid artery and the superficial petrosal artery.The arterial supply of incudostapedial joint and the distal portion of the incuscomes from the vessels passing to them from the stapes rather than from the incudalsource.From above account,it would appear that the head of the malleus and thebody and short crus of the incus derived from first branchial cartilage are mainlysupplied by the anterior tympanic artery,and the remainder of the auditory ossiclesderived from second branchial cartilage are supplied by the stylomastoid artery.