Thoracic walls, lungs and pleura

Published on May 30, 2024   25 min

Other Talks in the Series: Introduction to Gross Anatomy for Medicine

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Hello, my name is Jenny Hayes, from the University of Melbourne. In today's lecture, I'll be covering the anatomy of the thoracic walls, lungs, and pleura.
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I've included a list of learning objectives here for the thoracic walls,
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and here is a list of learning objectives for the lungs and pleura.
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The thoracic walls consist not only of the thoracic cage and muscles between the ribs but also the skin, subcutaneous tissue, muscles, and fascia overlying them. The subcutaneous tissue contains the mammary gland anteriorly. The breast consists of glandular tissue, which is the mammary gland proper, and that's what secretes milk, but also fibrous and adipose tissue together with blood vessels, nerves, and lymphatics. Whilst the size and contour of the breast vary, the base is a constant, and you can see in the slide, it extends from the second to sixth ribs vertically, and from the lateral border of the sternum to the mid-axillary line in the horizontal plane. There is a superolateral extension toward the axilla, which is called the axillary tail. That extension means that the greatest bulk of glandular tissue is in the upper outer quadrant of the breast. If we divide the breast tissue into quadrants, the axillary tail extends from the upper outer quadrant and the greatest bulk of glandular tissue is there. Which means that the maximal incidence of carcinoma occurs in that upper outer quadrant. The deep aspect of the breast is slightly concave and is related to the pectoralis major muscle, which you can see in the slide, and also the serratus anterior muscle which is not shown here. But the breast is separated from these muscles and their overlying fascia by a submammary or sometimes called retro-mammary space which contains loose areolar tissue, and that allows the breast some degree of movement. As you can see in the slide, the breast shares the arterial supply, venous drainage, and lymphatic drainage with the thoracic walls and upper limb. The medial aspect of the breast receives their arterial supply, and drain into the internal thoracic vessels and the parasternal lymph nodes. Whilst the lateral aspect of the breast get the arterial supply and venous drainage from the axillary vessels or back into the axillary vessels and the axillary lymph nodes. The thoracic cage consists of 12 pairs of