The ascending aorta | Structure of ascending aorta | Medicoze

The ascending aorta is a wide vessel some 5 cm long. It begins at the aortic orifice behind the 3rd right costal cartilage below the level of the sternal angle and ascends to the right, around the pulmonary trunk, to the level of the sternal angle. At its base above each of the semilunar valvules of the aortic valve is a dilatation.

                              The ascending aorta is enclosed in a sheath of serous pericardium common to it and the pulmonary trunk within the fibrous pericardium. Its lower part lies behind the infundibulum of the right ventricle and the origin of the pulmonary trunk, and above this the sternum is anterior. Posterior, from below upwards, are the left atrium, the right pulmonary artery and the right main bronchus. On its left lie the left auricle and pulmonary trunk, and to the right the right auricle and superior vena cava.